main awning ridge pole repair

[Ralph L. Fullenwider]

Hello everyone:

While down in Texas working on the gen set, not long ago, an over night, un
expected rain and an un lowered main awning corner for water run off,
caused the ridge pole to fold in the center.

Bim and I finally got the awning rolled up and tied down for travel and I
would look into replacing the main awning ridge pole from Zip Dee.

A call to Zip Dee one morning confirmed that a new 23 foot awning pole
would run around $175.00 and while that is not a bad price, the shipping
price floored me to the tune of $600.00 trucking charges. Whoh up, I was
tempted to drive up there for that price. LOL

So I call a local small muffler shop and was told "sure, I will work with
you on that." So Charolette and I stripped the roller down and removed all
pop rivets and loaded the bent pole of 3 inch 18 ga galvanized steel into
the van, tied a red rag on the end of it and I was off to the muffler shop.

The owner of the shop chose a 24 inch piece of 3 inch exhaust pipe after
cutting out the bend on mine. And swelled a tight slip fit bell on both
ends of the repair tube. Then being sure of the length measurement he
welded the patch tube to my original. I paid him $30.00 for the repair and
loaded up and was off to home base (about 1 1/2 miles or so.)

The pole was decidedly much straighter of course but needed a little
tweaking. We re installed the tubing into the awning fabric and re attached
the hardware and set the spring tension. Charolette, walked the repaired
awning tube right up into travel position as easy as you please.

Point being, those tubes can be repaired and they work after wards. I have
added before and after photos in the photo section under awning repair.

Safe travels,

Ralph and Charolette Fullenwider
"84FC35 "Ruff Diamond"
Duncan, Oklahoma