When I was at
Overland of America last year, they had the Content Creators (Youtubers and some guy with a Ford Ranger website) camping in an open area and the September Oklahoma sun was a scorcher. At one point I was laying under my trucks tailgate just to get some shade. I would have loved to have had an awning.
This past Christmas my kids got me the
5'x8' Danchel Outdoor awning I had on my Amazon wish list. This past Friday I finally installed it.
The awning is only 13.6 pounds and came with two long L-brackets that the awning bolts to. The goal is to bolt the brackets to the side of the cross rails on my bed rack. To do so I'll need to cut and drill some 1/8" x 1-1/4" angle to bolt the L-bracket to.
This meant that I got to use the bandsaw and drill press I bought off of Facebook Marketplace.
It's a pretty simple mod. It was nice having the band saw and being able to get a clean straight cut and not shooting sparks across the shop.
It's all bolted together with Grade 8 hardware which is overkill for a 13 pound awning.
When I was trying to bolt the awning to the brackets the bolt spacing wasn't lining up with the holes in the L-bracket. Turns out the hole spacing is the same along the long side, but slightly closer on the short side.
The yellow dot on the bracket shows where I need to drill a new hole.
Finally mounted.
Here it is open:
The Poles:
When you unroll the awning there are two poles folded up in the end that swing out, extend, and lock in place by twisting them.
There are also two poles in the mount that swing out and extend that support the awning. The awning has Velcro straps to secure it to the poles.
In the photo below you can see that there's a pin on the end of the pole that inserts into a hole at the end of the awning near the vertical poles.
Then there's two ropes and stakes to hold the poles upright.
Note About Size:
The 2019+ Ford Ranger has a weird 5.5' bed length. This awning is actually listed as 4.9' wide and 8.2' long. I could have gotten the 6.5' x 8.2' awning, but it would have hung off the back of the truck by a foot, and I didn't want to do that. I like how clean and everything looks on the truck. It all looks like it's meant to fit.
Now I just need to take a camping trip so I can really test it out.
