Repairing Your Camper Awning

Our 2001 Jayco Qwest came with a Carefree of Colorado Awning that is several years old, but it good shape.  First, the zipper was stuck and wouldn't slide to open.  No worries.  If you find yourself in this shape, spray with silicone spray.  Presto.  It worked like magic!

The awning worked just fine except one of the vertical legs would not extend.  No matter what we did, no go.  A new awning pole is around $85 which is still less expensive than replacing the whole deal.  And, I'm trying not to spend a million dollars on this one project.  Finding the part for our exact awning was a little bit of work, but this company is amazing.

I started emailing customer service to help me find the part we needed because I was not even sure of what model we had.  After several emails back and forth, a sweet lady was able to help me determine exactly what I needed.

When I was trying to fix the stuck pole, I could not figure out what in the world it was attached with.  These little metal screws didn't look like any thing that I had seen.  And before anyone judges me for not knowing what a rivet is, people are not born knowing this stuff.  I called to order my new awning pole, and while on the phone I had another great helper explain what I needed to do to attach it!  Can customer service get any better.

Essentially, I need to drill out the existing rivets and replace the new pole with a rivet gun and the replacement part.  Simple!  I could do this.   And this was a whole lot easier having been explained what those "screws" were and what tools I needed.

Drilled out rivet hole.  A little larger, but a washer can be placed there.  However, I managed to make this work.

Also, replacing an awning pole involves 2 rivets for the model that we had.  This took about 30 minutes start to finish to replace. After removing the old rivet from the one connecting piece, I needed to reconnect the one pole (rivet one) and connect the footing piece (rivet two).

Line up the rivet with the hole where the rivet is going to connect.  Squeeze the rivet gun until it deploys the rivet into position.  This does require some muscle.

New rivet on pole bottom

So now we have a like new awning to go with our like new pop up camper!  I am thrilled!

The new awning pole fits perfectly!

Now that we have repaired the awning, we can get on with camping and putting up some fun lights to enjoy evenings outside.

We have these awesome Klippy Clips to attach our lights to the awning.  If you have rope lights, RV Designer has those too! RV Designer M122 Clear Klippy Klips for Rope Lights, 10 Pack  I have a couple of packs tucked away in our storage for camping trips this year.

If you are looking for other Camping Gadgets and Gear, check out my page with other ideas that will make camping more fun and easy!

Also, don't miss a post about our adventures of a family of three.  Follow along by subscribing to my blog.  I'd love for you to join me on our journey.

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