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Old 02-22-2016, 05:16 PM   #1
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Awning trouble

In the 30 months I have owned and used ET-19 the part of the trailer I have rarely touched is the Carefree Fiesta awning. This is not counting the two times I bumped and busted and replaced the bottom bracket stand-off. (Bloody pot metal.) So at the recent Quartzsite rally I needed Doug to walk me through my awning set-up. It was either the second or third time that rolled up canvas ever saw the sun shine.

To our surprise, discovered the right upper brace would not click into place. It was missing the spring clip that is normally riveted to the slider on the brace arm. No clue how or why this happened. The awning still got set up, and never ripped away. But I was flummoxed. When I got home did a parts search on the Carefree.com site, found that slider would cost me $9.48 plus $15 for shipping. (!)

So what could I do? Briefly thought I could manufacture the part myself. No, that wasn’t going to happen. Was about to bite the bullet and put my order through but then, I remembered Tom’s RV Service on Moon Street in Albuquerque. This is a great place, has a yard always packed with expensive big-boy rolling Bismark’s in for repairs. Tom and his people are the best. They keep a junk pile of salvaged parts out back. Office-Trudy called Hydraulics-Jack, who said, “Come with me, we just might have what you need.” We picked through a pile of arms and braces together and Jack pulls out my brace, slider and spring clip all attached.

No charge. Mikey likes it...
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Old 02-22-2016, 06:22 PM   #2
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This clip is the weak part of the awning, I lost one on each of my set ups. You merely tighten the black knob to secure the horizontal in place without the clip, still functional without it.
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Old 02-22-2016, 06:24 PM   #3
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Does it fall off because you didn't tighten the knob when putting the awning away?
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Old 02-22-2016, 06:28 PM   #4
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No, it falls off due to use, it is a spring piece of tin that is riveted to the arm, very easy to break off. It merely holds the arm horizontal, but the black knob does the same.
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Old 02-22-2016, 06:30 PM   #5
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If Carefree changed their mode of assembly to a nut attachment then replacement would be easy.
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Old 02-22-2016, 06:30 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MyronL View Post
Mikey likes it...
It seems you get some of the same commercials down there that we do, though that one is old.



I have never had one of those spring clips break, but I have had to reshape the spring metal so it would latch and release easy. You can set up without them, as you now know, but only if you leave the bottom end of the arms attached to the trailer. We prefer the arms straight down so they are more out of the way, and the end of the rafter will slip down without those clips.
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Old 02-23-2016, 08:53 AM   #7
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Mikey thinks either there may just be too much rattling around up there when driving or the pin is merely the cheapest crap Carefree could find.
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Old 02-23-2016, 12:09 PM   #8
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Or like ours, it was never installed from Carefree. Ours was missing when we received the trailer and you could tell it was never installed. ETI was nice enough to send us a new one.
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Old 02-24-2016, 12:16 AM   #9
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Steel under tension and shear held on to alum with a alum tube rivet shears the shop head off . I have done one after my maiden voyage and now have to do the other one this spring. I will be fabricating my own and testing hardware to see what clears so as to not use a rivet again. Poor engineering .

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