The 13' long slide topper awing material on our nine year old Fleetwood Bounder has finally come to the end of its days. The hardware looks sound and it still has tension. I see several RV parts places sell generic replcement material only (its a Carefree) and wondering if anyone has had any experience installing this themselves? Looks like it is easy - two beads on each side - slide it in while keeping tension and reset the lock screws.??? However long experience has told me its never as easy as it looks. I am fairly handy, but have always had problems with anything spring loaded and can't even cope with regular household window shades. Any advice??? It appears to be about 1/4 the price of the dealer installing a whole new set up. Thanks.
Mike P.
What year is your Bounder? Fleetwood has used A&E for quite a few years. Just think you should check it out.
The slide toppers are all easy to replace. No sweat.
It is easy to replace. You just put the slideout out, unroll the remaing material, pin the roller on each end with a 1/8" pin or ice pick to hold the spring, then slide the material out of the roller and the gutter rail as needed. Oh, you also have to remove the retaining screw from the gutter rail. Just not a difficult job at all.
* This post was
edited 03/14/08 03:52pm by tomousecap *
Bob
2007 Fleetwood Bounder - Full Paint 35E
Workhorse 6 Speed 496 Cubic Inch V8 - W22
Ford fans - RPM is a poor substitute for Cubic Inches!
2005 Saturn Vue V6 AT FWD Toad - Love it!
Not that hard to do although it will take two people to put it back on. I recently had my large slide topper off, repaired it and reinstalled. The repair should give me about 2 more years before I have to replace.
When I replace I think I'll make my own, just buy the material and adhesive (HH-60 vinyl glue) and use the old ones as patterns.
Priced the materials last year and I could do all three on my MH for under $150. The premade replacements I priced were about $600 for all three after paying shipping.
To take the old one off you need to extend the slide and remove the tension on the take up spring. Do this by turning the topper inward about 1/4 turn and insert pins (I used large nails) in holes at both ends of the roller. When you release the roller with the pins inserted you should have some slack. Then you should find and remove screws on the roller and the rail (mine were on top) where the awning slides into the roller and roof at the MH. The roller on the slide stays on the MH. The topper now just slides out.
When I replace mine I'll be reusing the rods in the topper. I think replacement toppers will come with a rod in both ends but I'm not sure.
Hope this made sense. Do a search here, you may have to go back more than a year, and you will find a lot of information and links for better instructions on replacing the toppers.
Consider this - Go to a marine shop that makes mooring covers for boats and bimini tops for boats. Take your old one(s) in so they have the correct dimensions and they will pull the lines out of the ends of the old and sew them into the new. The material they use is lifetime guaranteed and you have numerous colors to choose from. It was a LOT cheaper then buying them through CW or A&E and ten times the quality... I had the toppers replaced on my last rig and when I got rid of it they still look brand new, but they were 5+ years old (IN ARIZONA)!!! Most marine shops will NOT do the install, but it was a piece of cake to do myself...
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