The holidays are past, the weather was cooperating and I had no excuse to procrastinate any longer. If you recall from an earlier post or two when we were
having problems with our electrical stuff we had to stay with relatives for several days until we could get a new converter/charger to keep our batteries charged. We (I) were a little distracted at the time with all that going on and I left the awning extended while we were away. A wind storm came up one evening and, despite the best efforts of our neighbors, the awning canvas tore about 6-8 inches at the rear edge right where it attaches to the side of the trailer before they could get it put away. Some of the brackets got slightly twisted too.
I bought some awning repair tape from the local rv dealer and today I extended the awning to see what could be done. First the rear arm was stuck and I had to get out the ladder to see what was jamming. Seems it is just due to all the twisting that occurred during the wind storm. I just twisted the arm a little and the rivet head that was hanging up came free and I was then able to completely unfurl the awning.
Upon inspection of the tear it was obvious that the vinyl was sun damaged. It was brittle and cracking and had a permanent curl. I cleaned up the vinyl as best I could and applied several pieces of repair tape, which is holding for now but with the sun damaged vinyl I can see we will be replacing it sooner rather than later.
My forgeting to retract the awning while we were away is just one more of those lessons you hope you could have learned from someone else's mistakes but sometimes have to learn for yourself. I don't feel like a complete idiot as I've read many accounts on rv blogs and forums where others have 'been there, done that' already.
Ok, what's next? I'm ready for our next adventure. One without any new mishaps.
Keep on truckin'!!
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