So it was back to project time! We had a yearly get-together with some of our friends coming up- so I wanted our summer goals for Serenity to be finished by the time that trip came around.
I came back with a resolve that I was going to fix the roof rack and ensure that what had happened on my way to Anchorage would never happen again. We started by re-cutting a new piece of conduit to replace the one that had been bent in half. After that Laura and I spent a bunch of time marking out the placement of every roof joist, guaranteeing we were hitting solid mounting points rather than just basing it on “feel”. I bought heavier duty mounting screws- and then we mounted the supports in to their new locations. After that I painted the bases of the supports with Gaco. We mounted together the pieces of rack into the supports, also adding in conduit clamps where the racking butted together (Due to moving the support positions) and by the time we were done she was rock solid.
The next thing that needed done was extensive re-building of my rogue pod. We ordered a cam-buckle and trap as a back-up, and then set out to purchase all of the necessary hardware we were going to need to fix and upgrade the pod. We installed the new hardware- to get it back to functional. The major area I upgraded on it was where the hasp had been. (You know… where it had managed to rip a whole lock through it). I installed a new hasp system- all reinforced by metal plating that spanned that area of the pod. After a bit of Gaco touch-up to patch up the scratches and dings it had suffered- it was good to go!
With the pod installed- it was time for a big moment of truth, it fact- the whole secondary reason we had built the rack in the first place.
During this whole time, we have a side story. I had been trying to get the awning of our dreams. I researched options forever and then had ordered one from Amazon. Check it out!
It was an 8′ x 8′ awning designed to be set up on the roof rack of a vehicle. The cool part is you could also order a room you could attach to it- so you could had a 8′ x 8′ x 8′ room on the side of your RV. This was the awning I had planned our roof rack around.
So Amazon does what it does best to Alaskans; offers a product and then decides it is too much to ship it afterwards. I ordered the awning, and was starting to get worried when a few weeks later I finally received a shipping confirmation! I waited another week and when it arrived I was sorely disappointed… the box was way too small. I opened it to find they had shipped me the room for the awning, something I hadn’t even ordered. I called Amazon, and they had me ship it back. They refunded my order and refused to ship me the awning… lame! Not just lame, 3 weeks later waiting and no product lame…
So we decided to pay a little more and ordered it through a completely different company who was willing to ship it to us- Quadratec! Thanks guys for actually doing it. The Awning came in just as promised. 😀 To mount the awning, I had researched and found many people use shelf brackets to mount it to. (Rather than the super expensive brackets ARB sells for it). I need the brackets to fit the conduit hangers and match up with the conduit, and be long enough to hand down to rest on the side of Serenity, thus attaining the 8′ height I would need for the awning and the future awning room. So here were the ones I found on Amazon.
When the arrived I had to drill new holes in them to line up with the awning mounting channels, and buy new stainless hardware to mount it. This all happened during Laura’s trip out of town- so I had decided to wait to hang the awning until Laura was back, it would be easier with 2 of us.
Well- it was time! We went and bought the last bits of stainless hardware we would need to do the job. Laura perched on Serenity’s roof to hold the awning in place as I bolted it. I hauled it up the ladder, maneuvered it into place, and got to ratcheting as fast as I could. After a bit of hard work the awning was installed- check it out!
With our goals met before our annual get together Serenity was good to go! We decided we would use the trip as the test run and keep a close eye on the newly upgraded pod and rack. And hence came an end to the end of a crazy few weeks since Laura had left for her trip.
So in other words… it was time to get back to work on The Odyssey!
Geoff Murphy 3/2/2020