Buy all your VW California Accessories at the Club Shop Visit Shop

Connecting a drive-away awning

holliers

holliers

VIP Member
Messages
156
Vehicle
T5 SE 180
Hi

I've just bought a drive-away awning.

I was fairly confident that I was simply going to connect the drive-away awning to the windout-awning, by lifting up the windout-awning flap and sliding in a cador (?) strip into the cup shaped slot that run inside said flap, however, when I was at the C&C Show most exhibitors had a sort of figure-8 (cup shaped at both ends) strip of plastic hooked over the top of the windout-awning flap.

This did give more headroom in the space between the van and the awning, and better clearance above the door, however it did look a little jammed in and a bit Heath-Robinson.

What is the preferred method of the collective?

(Sorry for the poor descriptions)

Cheers
Mark
 
  • Like
Reactions: AHJ
With some pictures to help my descriptions above

Which method do people use?

One gives more headroom / door clearance, but the other definitely seems to be "As Designed"

Cheers
Mark

IMG_0024.jpg

IMG_0026.jpg
 
Another method is to slightly open the wind out awning, drop the figure of 8 strip into the cassette and wind back the awning, thus trapping the strip.

So in your first picture the strip would be trapped inside the cassette not sitting on the top edge. And you only need the figure of 8 strips.
 
The figure of 8 one. There is an old thread on here about it. I read it before I bought ours.
The plastic strips come in lengths of about 1.5 metres. You will need 3.
Definitely the best way to attach.
 
We always attach our Kyham awning onto the top edge of the roll out awning just using the figure of eight without the kador strip. Be prepared for it to mark the cassetts slightly though. I'm going to put some helicopter tape along the top edge to stop this happening.
Apart from giving more height as mentioned it makes it a true "drive away" .
Connecting the awning to the van using the slot in the roll out is far more difficult to reattach.
 
Perfect. Thanks all. I have some practice-time set up this weekend.

Cheers
Mark
 
We always attach our Kyham awning onto the top edge of the roll out awning just using the figure of eight without the kador strip. Be prepared for it to mark the cassetts slightly though. I'm going to put some helicopter tape along the top edge to stop this happening.
Apart from giving more height as mentioned it makes it a true "drive away" .
Connecting the awning to the van using the slot in the roll out is far more difficult to reattach.
What is Helicopter Tape, please?
 
Helicopter tape is a clear plastic protective layer that you can stick
On things to prevent marks & scratches.

P1000908.jpg
 
We always attach our Kyham awning onto the top edge of the roll out awning just using the figure of eight without the kador strip. Be prepared for it to mark the cassetts slightly though. I'm going to put some helicopter tape along the top edge to stop this happening.
Apart from giving more height as mentioned it makes it a true "drive away" .
Connecting the awning to the van using the slot in the roll out is far more difficult to reattach.
this sounds an interesting approach as I struggled a bit with reattaching ours well when camping in Scotland last year (and really needed to have it well sealed as it chucked it down!). So you literally put one side of the figure of 8 onto the top of the awning (similar to the top photo above, but without the kador in it) and then you attach the piping on the khyam into the figure of 8? can you just click it in , or does it need threading, and if so do you have enough slack to do this easily? i'm intrigued...will have to give it a try next time...
 
We slide the figure of 8 onto the drive away awning. 3 peices in our case.

Then open the cali awning slightly, pop the figure of eight into the gap at teh top and wind the cali awning back in, trapping the figure of 8.

So a bit like the top photo but with only the figure of 8

Really simple solution.

Edited cos I realise on re-reading it I hadn't made sense.
 
Last edited:
genius -sounds much easier than my prior method! i'd never thought of doing it that way! thanks
 
Hi all, I am just ordering some Kador piping for our Vango Kela but they do it in two different sizes, there is 4mm and 6mm, what size do we need for the Cali wind out awning?
 
Back
Top