I have a Coaster Bus fitted with a Fiamma roll out awning with a centre rafter, my problem is I have no way of attaching 'anti flap straps' to either end of the awning. Any suggestions?.
Hi monsta, i made anti flap bars for our coaster, 40 x 20 aluminium tube fitted with rope rail ,made a couple of brackets and mounted them to the frame. Then I made another two for the outer rail and screwed them on. Works a treat ,plus the rope rail allows me to mount the end shades. At greens I bought the ones from the camping store and they lasted 20 minutes before they were distroyed ,mine have seen many a strong wind and still survived, cost me $90 at Bunghole.
You can buy Fiamma Anti Flap Kit from the big caravan accessory businesses. These aren't cheap but they are very good. In essence they are a clamp that locks into the frame and then you clamp the edge of the awning.
We have the Fiamma set, they can also be used for an annex side walls, plus a shade wall. We purchased the poles as well that allow the side wall to be attached next to the van/vehicle we then had a black mesh made up ie similar to a side annex wall that could be position at either end and quickly set up with Velcro.
But to me since the of AL construction they are not as strong as a steel equivalent. Recall the cost was around $500
Hi, Monsta welcome to the forum. I have just today fitted a new Fiamma awning to the Coaster. F45S 4M. Same as old one. With anti flapping device I ran a boat winch strap over the awning length ways and put springs and ropes on it and it worked well.
A gent in town suggested to get shade cloth 90% x 1800 wide and lay it over the awning length ways and have some eyelets in it and use springs and ropes on it.
He said it achieves 3 things. 1 it stops the awning from lifting in a wind and 2 it keeps the sun off the vinyl which helps it last longer, 3 it acts as a privacy screen on the ends as it goes to about 600mm from the ground. Also I suppose it would be cooler under their. He said he had been using this method for 5 years now with no issue.
Sorry to hijack this thread but I have a question and it fits in with the Fiamma, I bought the weather strip that stops water and leaves getting behind the awning. Now it came with no instructions but looking at it seems like you get one part in the groove and pry the other side in maybe using something slippery to help it go into place.
Then I suppose it is a matter of gluing it to the roof, Which I have some Sikaflex that should do that job. Any ideas would be great.
One other thing is that on our Coaster the old awning was 10 year old and it had been subjected to a very severe wind event at Harrington with us and this caused the metal on the roof to split and tear where the rear bracket was attached to the roof. Now I have had new panels folded up that matched the roof profile 1.6mm thick gal. I painted them and put them up last weekend over the existing roof with the help from a mate and we installed the awning today. So the roof of a Coaster was never designed to carry an awning and the stresses from wind can play havoc with the metal as it appears to be only .9 or 1.2mm thick. The new panels have been fixed using Sikaflex and peel away 3/16 pop rivets. So now it is very strong.
You can buy Fiamma Anti Flap Kit from the big caravan accessory businesses. These aren't cheap but they are very good. In essence they are a clamp that locks into the frame and then you clamp the edge of the awning.
You can get a Privacy Screen for the Side for a reasonable amount but the two ends are very expensive. I bought the normal one for a caravan and had them modified to suit the Rope Guide on the Clip System. The Rope guides are smaller than the normal caravan rope guide.
I use Occy Straps to hold down the Privacy Screen and this works very well BUT read the booklet on the awning as they state several times that it is a shade awning and can not handle high winds or heavy rain.
