Today I was set on getting my ARB awning on the Jeep. I called in sick today, since my body (and attitude) has been so worn and beaten from work for the past three weeks. I've got a lot of little projects to get done and I just don't have that many free days off to get things done. I truly needed this mental rest day just to sharpen my saw.
I already had the Rhino rack on the Jeep from the iKamper installation. The awning is so long that I really wanted to add a third rack rail to the top to give the awning more stability, since I will be taking the "overlanding" setup rock-crawling. I had another Surco rack set laying around and figured that I could reuse the front rack assembly. When I bought the used Rhino Rack bars from ExtremeTerrain, I somehow ended up with an extra (third) bar for free! So I thought it would be nice to get that into the mix. But when I tried to attach it to the feet a few weeks ago, the inserts would not work right, so I went ahead and ordered some more off of Amazon. I bought some Chinese knock-offs to save some money. What could go wrong?! Lol!
The idea was to mount the third bar in a manner that I would later be able to use it to carry traction boards or extra Rotopax fuel cans. I removed the Surco bar from the feet, then tried to attach the Rhino bar to them with the new kits from Amazon. As it turns out, the screws were too long, so I had to hunt through the garage for some suitable replacements.
I got the new bar assembly onto the top of the Jeep. Then I tried attaching the awning. I mounted both front and rear awning stays on the tops of the bars. There was a difference in heights between the Rhino and Surco rack bars. The Rhino setup has such a low profile that the awning mounted at a downward angle front to back. Hmmm...something I hadn't really considered. Okay. So I mounted the front awning stay to the bottom of the Surco bar. Much better! Close to perfect, but now the awning sat so low that the driver door couldn't even open. Also when mounting the stay to the bottom of the bar, the stay was so long that it ran into the mounting foot, so it was sticking out away from the roof quite a bit!
I decided to whomp on them awning stays and do some cutting and drilling. I drilled three new holes in each 1 inch higher that the original holes. I also took the front stay and cut 2 inches off its length. I sprayed a little satin black paint on them to keep the rust away, then it was time to mount.
In order to mount the stay on the front, I had to remove the rack from the top and slide the foot aside, so I could have access to tighten the bar mounting screws. At this time, I also measured 8" off the RTT so that the Rotopax will fit comfortably when mounted. The rear stay was a bit more work. One of the awning stay bolts was buried under the RTT, so I had to unmount both left and right mounts for the tent, just so I could lift the tent assembly to give me access to tighten the bolt! Of course after I had it all tightened up back together again, I realized I needed to undo it again, so I could be able to tighten the bolts that attached awning to the stay! Argh!!!
Once it was all back together and tightened up, the awning was mounted solidly and level! Yay! The mounts were far enough apart that they will have plenty of support when things get rough.
