Awnings! What are your thoughts?

Hi Ramy - I’m assuming from reading this you put the brackets onto the camper first then hung the awning to the brackets? I’ve been playing this out in my head for a few days trying to figure out which way to go with this. I have a OVS 180 that is coming off a prinsu rack on a 4runner and going onto my gfc rtt. I plan on mounting all this up this weekend.

I just installed the OVS 270 LT.
It’s just what I wanted. Super quick to deploy and put away and only 53lbs.
Used three gfc brackets and it feels very sturdy. (Not doing pull-ups on it though!)
Took 30 mins to install by myself.
The rain fly rods won’t work on my passenger side where the awning mounts, but they would work every where else.

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My neighbor and I recently installed an Ironman 4x4 batwing. Three GFC brackets on the truck first then it was easy to align the bolts. Held it in place with a strap through the center bracket while snugging the bolts down. Was easy.

@cvollers you don’t happen to have any extra corner brackets left do you? Been following this thread for a while but just picked up an AluCab 270 kind of out of the blue and need a corner bracket for a Thanksgiving trip asap. If not I might be fabbing something up myself this weekend.

Sorry, everything in our second production run is spoken for. If you are interested in our third (which most likely will happen in December) let me know.

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Eezi-Awn Swift - their freestanding model (if there’s no wind). Super simple basic coverage for cooking/sitting in the sun. OK for rain as long as it’s not blowing too much sideways, LOL. I try and adhere to go-light principles even when truck camping, so it’s fairly minimal and light enough for its high mounting location (w.r.t. center of gravity).

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I bought this one on clearance from Eddie Bauer and it works like a charm. Super easy setup and takedown, and mounting was a breeze using the GoFast standard mounts.

https://www.eddiebauer.com/p/82300354/shadowcaster-53-sun-shade?sp=1&color=Gray&size=ONE%20SIZE

We have three committed for our next GFC/Shadow awning bracket, but need a couple more before we pull the trigger. We can also customize the design to work with other 270 awnings. Message me via our website if interested. Get in touch - 4WD-Mod.com

FWIW - I wanted a small footprint lite weight awning for the aft end of my tacoma because that’s where we cook and hang out. It had to be enough of a foot print to keep the rain off when hanging out w/o being restricted to sitting on the tailgate of the truck or stuffed inside the bed. A 60" 180 awning was commercially available but that would exceed the width of the GFC when aft mounted, so decided on the DIY 180 awning route. I think it turned out great, roughly 10’ wide and 58" deep when deployed, which was just enough to keep my wife and me protected. The awning housing is 50" wide and the aluminum brackets allow it to clear the locking mechanism of the GFC popup. I used 1" square tube for the arms (36" for the 180 swing out arms) and (48" for the aft arms) with 3/4" square tube (about 14") telescope insert inside the 1" square to get my 58" aft span.

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Nice work!! I’m working on a super lightweight awning myself. I’d love to see more of the mechanism you designed.

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Just a reminder that we are looking for 270 awning owners (or future owners) looking for a rear corner bracket to stabilize their mount. Just got our second run in and they look great. Here’s a few pics showing how it works with the GFC “dogbone” mounting hardware.




And yes, that is a yoga mat. Give us a shout: www.4WD-Mod.com

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Would love to see more photos of how you made this!

Just purchased the new-ish OVS 270 LTE to mount on my camper once I pick it up, thought I’d drop a link in here since I didn’t see any discussion about it. The big draw for me was total weight, ~30lbs. Price doesn’t hurt either.

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I saw those when they were introduced around Black Friday time. Not much discussion because there are not many in the wild yet, if any. OVS is notorious for pushing their release dates.

That ground-up shot really makes it seem tiny. It’s basically 3/4 the size of the 270LT, which is already smaller than most other 270’s. I’ll be curious to see your review.

Yeah I looked around the web and couldn’t find anyone who had hands-on experience with them, even in a test/media environment. But at that pricepoint, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it out.

RE: size, my thought process was that I’ve lived with no awning or one of the square pop-ups this long, this one is close enough in size that it’ll do.

Once I get hands on I’ll post some pics

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Great looking aluminum welds!

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Farmed the brackets out to an aluminum welding talent in Tucson.

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I’d personally be worried about that mount because it looks like a really long lever to put a lot of torque through the T-nuts and into the channels of the extrusion on the GFC. I’d be worried about bouncing around on rough roads/trails causing serious damage.

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My thoughts exactly.

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