Halle-freaking-lujah!!!

Yeehaaa!  The awning is fixed and works like a champ.  

So, amazingly the bracket was delivered to our mail forwarder in Sarasota, how with the corrupted address on it, but it didn't matter, the important thing was I got the bracket.  Also, we lucked out and we were able to get the stripped out screws out of the new motor, and mounted the new bracket.  Ready to go!  

So day one, with the help of Harold and Harvey, we tackle pulling the awning up again to insert and mount the new motor.

Harold and I getting the new motor in,
yeah, I'm hot

A bit like a puzzle to get it inserted in all the right places

Getting there

It's in and almost done

So after getting the awning back in its mounts and securing it, wiring in the new motor, and going to get the fabric from our storage unit, we were ready for day two.

So again with the help of many, we got 4 ladders together, and lots of help, Harold, Scott, Harvey, Debbie, Steve, and of course Jan.  The first thing to do was to carefully extend the awning supports.  It was a two part process, Jan and I had to make rope loops to hold the front rail while we cut the wire ties that have been holding it together all this time.  Then we had to tie on two long ropes so we could ease the leading rail out.  The way this awning works is spring tension is working to hold the awning open and the motor rolls the fabric around the roller tube against that pressure.  The springs are very strong, and we were warned repeatably by the manufacturer to be sure we let it out carefully because if it was allowed to fly out it would certainly break.  It went well.

The wire ties have been cut and the rope loops are holding it
while I attach two long ropes to the leading rail

The awning support fully extended

Next came the challenge of getting the fabric back on, while not difficult it does take a bit of patience to thread the fabric into a groove in the roller tube and a groove in the leading rail.  Plus it is a big piece of cloth and kind of unwieldy.  But with lots of help it was accomplished quickly and easily!

Harold in the white shorts is feeding his end into the roller tube
while Scott on the right is pulling.
You can't see me feeding my end into the rail, while Harvey, my puller
is moving the ladder to get into position to pull my side

Also Jan and Debbie are feeding Harold and I the fabric and taking some weight off us as we insert the edges in the grooves.  Once in and with a huge sigh of relief, we center the fabric in the roller tube.

Harold and I centering and securing the fabric in the roller tube

Then we have to adjust the motor to have it pull in the fabric and shut off just as the awning closes and also to extend and shut off just as the awning is completely extended.  There is an adjustment for each on the side of the motor.  It required many, many adjustments and running it in and out but eventually I got it right where it needed to be.

Getting it adjusted

So now the awning saga is finally done, only took a year:-)  But, wow, we now have an awning back!

Jan and I owe a lot of thanks to all our helpers, we could never have done this by ourselves.  So thank you everyone!

Awning all done? Ah, that would be a no.

It's been an entire two weeks since my last post.  Obviously the awning motor replacement must be done, but no, and it's still not done :-(  

We are very lucky to be surrounded by friends who are ready to offer their help, so we gathered to take on the awning project.  Now first of all, the awning in question is mounted such that there is no access to the end where the motor is located, so there are basically two choices, remove the awning completely, it's about 400 pounds, or possibly just pivot it enough to gain access to the front end.  So after some difficulty getting it loose due to a broken bolt, we amassed the group and pivoted, and it worked like a charm!

The right most arrow is where the motor lives
so we needed to raise that end and pivot on the
"pivot here" spot

Harold performing a very necessary and important job
to not allow the awning to slip off the roof!

Me pretty much doing nothing

Jack pulling the old motor with Scott overseeing

Wow, this is slick!  In a few minutes, we had the old motor out, handed the new motor to Jack since he was already in the hot seat, and..............no way to fasten the new motor in, it has a completely different end!  So here we are, after a whole year, and after the manufacturer sending the wrong motor which put off the project this long, so now do we once again have the WRONG motor?????  And it's conveniently a Saturday, so I can't get any answers until Monday, not good.

So on Monday afternoon, yes the manufacturer is in California, the guy says just attach the enclosed bracket to the end of the new motor and you're good to go.  What bracket I say?  The bracket that is enclosed in the box with the motor.  Well, there is no bracket, so he says I'll send you one, I say great, send it overnight since you are the reason twice now, that this project is taking so long, he says no I can't expedite, even if you pay for the shipping, GRRRRRR.  So I carefully give him my shipping address and he says he'll ship it right out and send me a photo of the bracket and send the tracking number.  OK, fine.

After an entire day goes by without anything I email and ask again, he says, oh I didn't get it out yesterday, but should get it out today.  At least he sends a picture of the bracket.

The old motor

The new motor

And what the new motor is supposed to look like

Well it's now been almost two weeks, and it's still not over.  I waited a few more days and still without a tracking number, emailed again, and finally get it.  I look it up and find it's been delivered!  That's nice, I never got it.  So I look around the motorhome again, recheck at the campground's office and mailbox, nothing, and decide to call Fedex to see what the shipping address is, ha, they won't tell you!  Security I guess, but on the tracking info one line says it was delivered to Nokomis, FL, where I am and where it is supposed to go, and another line says it was delivered to Sarasota where my mail forwarder is, so now being a little more than irritated I email the manufacturer back and ask what address did he ship it to?  Turns out he used the street address for the campground and the city of Sarasota with the Nokomis zip code, so actually he sent it to an unknown address, but it was delivered??????   Well, by the time I find out all of this, my mail forwarder has closed for the day.  Today I will find out if it possibly somehow ended up in Sarasota, or I'll have to go through the whole process again.  Keep your fingers crossed!

So instead of awning repair, Jan and I have been doing other things to include finding a really good sushi restaurant right here in Venice that we didn't know about.

Delicious and beautiful!

Devouring some yummy stone crab.

And spending some interesting time over at the jetty, look what we saw come in.

This pulls in

Getting ready to fly

All set and heading for the water.

It is an amphibious ultralight built for two, pretty cool.  We wanted to see it fly but the owner was waiting for an instructor, he had just bought it, and he was late and we didn't stick around.

So a lot of nothing, hopefully today I'll find the elusive bracket and on my next post I'll be able to tell you that the awning motor is replaced and the awning works perfectly.

Slow, but at least we are making progress

So how much have we accomplished on our "to do" list so far?  Exactly, nothing :-)  I got about half of the doctor stuff done and we had an opening yesterday so Jan and I attacked the Fantastic Vent fan replacement first.  We were surprised to find the company didn't just send us more parts for our problem, they sent an entire new unit, and that is for a 10 year old fan!  Wow, wish more companies were this good.  Good news, bad news, that prompted us to completely replace the fan, dig out caulking, clean it all up, reinstall the new fan, do the wiring, etc.  

Old one coming out

Hey, there's a big hole in our roof!

I was going to use a sealant adhesive, but when we pulled the old unit out, we found Monaco had used a putty tape which obviously sealed it well as we never had a leak and best of all facilitated an easy removal from the roof.  Figured if the first one lasted 10 years with no problem, we'd install the new one the same way.

The new one ready to be installed

Putting down the putty tape

The putty revealed

 We got it all in and caulked around the base and the screw heads and today I will install Eternabond which is a roof sealing tape that adheres and seals the entire unit and looks much better and cleaner than caulk.  We wanted the caulk to dry completely before installing the tape. 

All in, ready for the screws and the tape outline you can see
on the roof is the Eternabond tape that was there.
The new tape will go right over the top, and with this tape,
once down it stays down!

This one even has its own fancy remote

So hopefully with this unexpected job out of the way, I will soon be sharing our successful completion of our other projects.