Hi all. Just got my camper. I notice that the tent is hard to close. The contents are quite squished in there when I close it. Nothing inside the tent. More worrisome is that the driver’s side extrusion middle seam us bowed. Not sure if that’s normal. Looks like water could get in there and the tent could actually get a little wet driving in a hard rain.
If you zoom in and look towards the front hinge, the bowing is evident.
Might want to check out this youtube video where he talks about making sure everything is in there correctly. I don’t have mine yet but just saw the video yesterday and it seemed helpful.
Well. Clearly mine has been like that too. Have you ever noticed that the tent gets wet during a rainy drive? You haven’t worried about it. I guess I won’t either unless others chime in with reasons that this is a problem.
I’m no GFC pro. I’m going to open that thing up and try reclose it to see how I do.
Lol thanks! I was interpreting the “bowing out” as one section of the extrusion sticking further out horizontally than another. Hence the video that I shared above. Yea, I see what you are talking about now.
Question, did you remove the bed panels and see if the gap disappears when your tent material is no longer inhibited by the panels?
Mine does the same thing, gets only slightly better if tent fabric is hanging down. Have not noticed any water getting in because of it though. I wouldn’t worry about it.
No water getting in, and no change with or without tent, cushions, or both together. It’s just like that. Just another “thing” on the irk list.
I keep a dead blow in the truck now because of the bowing out of the extrusion and the tendency for the back to become out of alignment when closing. Drives me nuts when I can’t get it closed first try
Well, for now I’m going to treat it as a cosmetic issue and a non-problem. I really don’t care unless this is a problem. From what I’ve seen thus far, it isn’t. I wonder if this happens only on campers with the driver side door and additional fabric associated with the door. Maybe the additional bulk of the door fabric causes some aluminum bowing over time. Dunno.
If you look closely they’re almost all like this, and in my experience it’s not been the cause of any issues. I’ve blasted 80 mph through some really soaking rain, and had the truck parked through a very wet winter and never found water getting in through the upper tent area.
Closing gets easier as the tent fabric breaks in,and as you learn how to tuck it better.
I leave my tent side windows about halfway open to help let air out, and close it until the struts won’t try to open it on their own. I then spend a moment tucking any fabric bunching up at the rear sorta “up” and back so it won’t be pinched. Also I peek around the sides to check for any pinching there. By then the residual air is usually out and I can latch things up.
This is with the 3" mattress and original tent fabric.
@anon72572904 and @ohhhmytaco thanks for alerting me to this. I appreciate the opportunity to help.
Let me start by saying, the best and fastest way to get help with your camper is to send an email to support@gfcengineering.com. I try to check the forum daily, but if I hadn’t been tagged in this thread, I likely would have missed it.
From what I can tell, your camper isn’t showing any signs of needing alignment, as @anon72572904 suggested. If you had any horizontal bowing, here’s an explanation and instructions on how to realign your roof:
Your roof is designed to “float” somewhat independently from the extrusion. We’ve designed it to do this so that road vibrations don’t rattle your camper to pieces.
Using a rubber dead blow or mallet, strike the upper portion of the side extrusion of your camper all the way down the length of the extrusion. This will straighten your extrusion so that it meets the lower portion more normally.
This kind of adjustment does not need to be made often, and cross bars/beef rack and add stiffness to your roof.
@GFC706 this looks totally normal to me. The wedge design is tighter towards the front, and then at the back your latch pins are preloaded up against your machined corner pieces. As far as water intrusion is concerned, your tent extrusion is designed with a gutter and drain holes. These campers are also designed to allow the passage of air through your tent compartment even when closed, allowing your tent to remain fresh at all times.
I mounted brackets and a cargo net underneath on the frame to hold the center cushions. Helps a ton. My tent is also the older pvc version which I understand to be more difficult to close than the newer canvas. I eyeball the straight line of outer extrusions every time I close. It’s always different. If it has too much bow it’s because of how I folded the tent.
This was giving me an issue until I realized that the zipper for the small windows would get caught between the two panels. So now I leave the zipper about 2-3 inch up so it won’t tend to fall into the cavity. Hope that helps anyone.
