Awning track fitting

[Squibby]

I have gotten fed up with trying to throw gide ropes over the roof of my van to attatche my drive away awning, so have invested in a lenght of alluminum awning track, My question is this, what is the best way to attatche the track to my van.

The track is for the 8mm figure 8 joining strip and of alluminum construction and I plan to attatche it to the steel body work just above the sliding side door, as my van is the hi top renault master the top section of the roof is fiber glass and thin with no real strenght.

Any body out there got any ideas?

Squibby.

 

[Sparks]

Post Deleted

 

[Kiwi Colin]

Hi. I presume the track has a flat back. If so try glueing it on with a good quality MS adhesive sealant such as SikaflexMarine, Soudal, or SticksLike. You will need about 5mm thickness to overcome differential expansion, so one cartridge will do about 2 meters. I'd put masking tape around the area where it is to go, apply the goo to the track and then put it in place with the aid of a helper. Use a couple of straps of tape to take the weight while you trim the edges, remove the masking tape while goo is still fresh and don't put any load on it for a week (most MS needs a day per mm thickness to cure). Good luck, Colin

 

[shazzpurple]

we used sikaflex ebt to do exactly this. stuck the rail to our bedford advantura and even though hubby was a bit worried its worked really well.no problem with wind either just make sure you can reach to put it in the rail, we needed to buy a high folding step to do this.so much easier than tying it down and throwing rope over the top.

 

[Smaug]

Lots of caravans are thin GRP or very thin alloy & seem to accept glued on awning strip quite well. The other big advantage of glueing onto steel is that it insulates the two metals & eliminates electrolytic corrosion.