Jessey Dearing
Member
I had been debating between an ARB and a Fiamma F45s awning for a long time, but finally decided on the Fiamma. The main reason was ease of use. I didn't want to be deterred out of laziness from setting it up. I debated using the rain gutters to mount it, but none of the attachments I found were designed specifically for the Delica and I didn't like where the supports landed on the van. I also felt like it would not work with my roof rack.
I looked around a lot for posts/images of a decent roof rack install for the Fiamma awning, but never found anything, so here's what I did.
The best option I found for the Fiamma awning is GoWesty's Roof Rack Awning Brackets ($40) which will also mount the ARB. Although, for the ARB awning, these brackets look way cleaner from VanagonLife.
The Fiamma comes with brackets made to mount straight into a wall (of an RV). GoWesty recommends that you do not use the brackets that come with the Fiamma and that you drill new holes in your Fiamma awning and through the L bracket (not using the pre-drilled holes) to very cumbersomely hang your awning. Turns out the pre-drilled holes for the GoWesty brackets match perfectly the Fiamma brackets, so I mounted the Fiamma brackets straight to the GoWesty brackets. I put a piece of rubber gasket between them to remove any rattling sound of metal on metal. I tried to find shorter bolts at my local hardware store, but they didn't have any and so I mounted with the really long ones that came with the awning. If I ever need to take this down, I'd probably replace them with shorter ones for aesthetics.
Next, drill holes in your Thule square bars matching the GoWesty bracket holes. I did this without removing them. Bolt in your brackets to the Thule bars (the photo shows the black plastic end of the Thule awning still there, I removed this completely). Adjust the Thule bars the appropriate width as recommend by Fiamma instructions. I keep my bars pretty wide since I often carry a 15' canoe on top. I bolted the brackets to the very end of the square bar since you have to lift the awning higher than the lip that you rest the awning on. The beauty of using the brackets that come with the awning is that you can do this install by yourself. You just put the awning up there and you can adjust it before bolting it down.
Once you have the awning lined up, drill the small holes into the bottom of the bracket through the awning and bolt it in place.
I just took the van out on a 300+ mile trip with 30+ miles of forest roads and it held up great. If I were to redo it, I'd get shorter carriage bolts as I mentioned, and probably paint the brackets black to match the awning and roof bars.
I looked around a lot for posts/images of a decent roof rack install for the Fiamma awning, but never found anything, so here's what I did.
The best option I found for the Fiamma awning is GoWesty's Roof Rack Awning Brackets ($40) which will also mount the ARB. Although, for the ARB awning, these brackets look way cleaner from VanagonLife.
The Fiamma comes with brackets made to mount straight into a wall (of an RV). GoWesty recommends that you do not use the brackets that come with the Fiamma and that you drill new holes in your Fiamma awning and through the L bracket (not using the pre-drilled holes) to very cumbersomely hang your awning. Turns out the pre-drilled holes for the GoWesty brackets match perfectly the Fiamma brackets, so I mounted the Fiamma brackets straight to the GoWesty brackets. I put a piece of rubber gasket between them to remove any rattling sound of metal on metal. I tried to find shorter bolts at my local hardware store, but they didn't have any and so I mounted with the really long ones that came with the awning. If I ever need to take this down, I'd probably replace them with shorter ones for aesthetics.
Next, drill holes in your Thule square bars matching the GoWesty bracket holes. I did this without removing them. Bolt in your brackets to the Thule bars (the photo shows the black plastic end of the Thule awning still there, I removed this completely). Adjust the Thule bars the appropriate width as recommend by Fiamma instructions. I keep my bars pretty wide since I often carry a 15' canoe on top. I bolted the brackets to the very end of the square bar since you have to lift the awning higher than the lip that you rest the awning on. The beauty of using the brackets that come with the awning is that you can do this install by yourself. You just put the awning up there and you can adjust it before bolting it down.
Once you have the awning lined up, drill the small holes into the bottom of the bracket through the awning and bolt it in place.
I just took the van out on a 300+ mile trip with 30+ miles of forest roads and it held up great. If I were to redo it, I'd get shorter carriage bolts as I mentioned, and probably paint the brackets black to match the awning and roof bars.
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