Community Forums

kchadw1944 · 01-02-2015, 02:22 PM

I have a twelve foot awning on my Fleetwood Flair m/h....it opens fine, but when I go to close it...it doesn't seem to line up with the piece that is fixed to the top of the motor home..( I call it the block ) the arm is hollow on the inside and right at the top on the inside, I usually have to spray some WD 40 and pry it over about a 1/4 inch to get the top of the arm to drop into place...I've left my levelers down in the front and up in the back...thinking less pressure to get it to slide into place...seems to help a little...checked to see if things were level thinking maybe that was the problem but all level...Used to work fine a year ago....thanks for the help everyone....Camping is wonderful isn't it...lol...

Gary RVRoamer · 01-02-2015, 04:22 PM

There are a couple possibilities, all basic mechanics. You can start by simply giving the extended awning a good shove in the right direction to get it better aligned. Sometimes that bit of bending is all it takes. Also watch the awning as it rolls up to see if it is rolling evenly, or skewing off to one side. Sometimes the torsion spring in the roller tube on one side gets weak or breaks, so that one end is winding tight and the other just following along. The material rolls up unevenly, forcing it to mis-align. It might also be that the upper or lower end of the awning has slipped sideways in its track (slot), which will make it roll cockeyed. Both ends are supposed to be aligned with each other and locked in place with a screw. If the screw falls out or rusts away, it can move a bit.

wa8yxm · 01-02-2015, 05:19 PM

What happens is the fabric slides a bit on the roller (Usually) so if the arm comes up forward of the fixed bracket, Unroll it, then lift it to release tension on the fabric and work it forward a bit.. Try again and again till it lines up.

On my coach the top end has a screw to keep that from happening, alas, only on the top (i got to do that fix some day and screw the bottom too)

JFXG · 01-02-2015, 10:55 PM

I have a 21ft manual on our Dutch Star, and I had a similar problem. The problem was the handling strap. For convenience, I had moved it along to where it was just about 6ft from the end with the release lever. But this put unbalanced force on the roller tube and caused the frame members to skew out of alignment. When I moved the strap back to the approximate center the problem resolved. I'm not sure to what degree your 12ft would be vulnerable like this, but it's worth checking.