Door Awning…

Damaged ‘Over the door’ Awning – Sept. 2019

Over the last 3, almost 4 years, on ahem, rare occasions, I would get all ready to leave an RV park on my way to my next destination, and a few miles later, usually at freeway speed, I would notice that something was wildly flapping. I could hear it but not see it. I could tell it was coming from the front door area though. Finally, I’d lean way over one way or the other in the drivers seat trying to spot it (it’s hard to see!) and that’s when I’d discover that I’d missed retracting the door awning. DOH!

Well, that happened often enough that finally, the fabric tore. And now I have that to fix. GAH!

Here’s how it looks…right now I’m gathering info on repairs.

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Update: Dec. 2019

When I was in Parker Dam in Nov-Dec 2019, I called ShadePro about fixing my Dometic A&E patio awning and liked what I heard so had them quote the over the door awning repair too. Liked that quote as well. One thing about these ShadePro guys is they’ve never tried to snow me about a repair and over quote the labor. I like how they ask for a reasonable amount.

This Dometic A&E Oasis door awning is 56″ wide, and the fabric is 48″ wide.

Anyway, hired them to do the job and they had new fabric for me soon after installing my new Colorado patio awning. The tech had to order it twice to get it right…and that’s from ShadePro’s own warehouse in California. But, I wasn’t in a hurry so it worked out fine.

Only took 30-40 minutes and I had a new door awning with nylon fabric instead of that cheap vinyl plasticized crap. But it was my fault that it needed repair…

Total was $208. Anyway, it’s all better now, and now I have a large note I set right in front of the driver so I’ll know not to drive off with the awnings extended. Happens more than you know.

You might have noticed in the above pictures that the awning assembly is missing a plastic cover on the right, and the one on the left isn’t in the best condition either. So I got a picture of the model number that’s on the assembly, the part that’s covered when the awning is closed. I should mention that this awning has manual retraction gearing that I use a long pole and hook device but is sort of universal and could have the parts where it could be set up for an electrical retraction setup. I’m not quite that lazy yet.

Back in Dec. ’19, I researched and found a new awning and it was over $500. Good reason to try to fix this one up right.

But now I am writing this update in August of 2020 and just checked for a new awning or rebuilt from A&E and I don’t see any. Not even on eBay. So if you have this over-the-door awning, note that it may become increasingly difficult to get replacement parts. If I (again) need replacement fabric, A&E’s plastic fabric isn’t my favorite so if I have to do it again, I’d still go with ShadePro and get another one from them. Checking their web site I see fabric for $99 these days but that’s likely due to the Covid issues and less than normal business. I paid $119. I’ll leave it to you to research your model if you need an entire new one but if you only need fabric, ShadePro has it.

I will say that I’m impressed with the awning assembly’s quality, as it had an abuse early this year when I’d left it 3/4 extended by accident and drove to get fuel. On the way home, I BANGED a bus. Really was loud, scared the crap out of me, thought it was something on their bus but when I got home I eventually realized it was my awning. I’d hit the bus, not the other way around which is what I had suspected. When I looked carefully, I can see a small bend in the metal frame…that part of the frame that gets extended. Nothing else is wrong, still works perfectly. Fits snugly when closed. So my awning hit something hanging on the side of the bus, that slapped the awning assembly in towards my RV and then the springs slapped it back out to were it had been set. Pretty happy it was designed for that.

Anyway, to get back to the subject at hand, I wanted to replace the endcaps for the door awning as they had weathered away for the most part. Sun rotted so the left side cover crumbled apart. I had used some Eternabond tape to hold it together but even that was giving out. The one on the right side has been missing since I bought the RV in 2016.

I searched the internet until I found a place that had the endcaps, and it ended up I purchased the endcaps from Panther RV Products. Got them on order for overnight so the cost was $28 each plus $17 shipping for a $73 total but they didn’t arrive in time for the ShadePro guy to install them and I just got around to it now in August of 2020.

Here’s the part numbers for each cover. Fiamma is the manufacturer.

Fiamma – Cuffia DX F45 04275A01C; Right Cover F45I Left Polar White; 07334

Fiamma – Cuffia SX F45  04274A01C; Left Cover F45I Left Polar White; 07445

I noticed that the plastic bags they came in both said ‘Left Polar’ but they were very different and the next line on the bag’s labels  showed ‘Left’ or ‘Right’ covers. And they fit fine.

I had to fully open the awning to access the screws and it worked best to use my impact driver to loosen both screws so I could pry up the right side of the assembly which allowed the new cover to be pushed onto the end of the assembly. That required space was around 1/8th inch. After slipping them on I tightened the screws so the assembly is nice and snug. And here’s how they look installed. I’m pleased to have the awning looking brand new.

And that’s all there is about the over-the-door awning. It has always worked great, and now it looks great. The new fabric helps too.

If you have this A&E, you might want to record the p/n’s for the endcaps as I think they’d all sun rot eventually, but the mechanism is solid and should last decades.