Lazy Daze Owners' Group

Yep, the left awning arm (when facing the awning) broke in a gust of wind. I was inside the RV and heard a loud bang. When I got outside, I saw the awning arm cable had come off the "knuckle" and I could not muscle it back on. It was all I could do to roll it back in as far as I did. I had to place a leather glove over the "knuckle" because sharp, broken pieces were scraping the fabric and nearly cutting through. I'm going to tie it down once it gets a little cooler (107 degrees).

I've been Googling but I don't see the full arm a for a Fiamma 45i (even on the Fiamma site). Actually, I'll replace both arms if I can find them. I plan to call Fiamma in Orlando tomorrow for suggestions.

At this point, I may want to replace the whole awning. Has anyone done this? Do you have any suggestions on a brand of awning? The Fiamma 45-S seems to be shorter (10  - 11.5 ft) and made for vans.

Help!?

Dang as in Dang.   I’m so sorry for this news.  You work so hard to keep your LD in good shape.  I can only wish you the best. 

Dang as in Dang.   I’m so sorry for this news.  You work so hard to keep your LD in good shape.  I can only wish you the best.

Thanks. It's weird because I was looking at the Fiamma website last week, scoping out parts that I wanted to replace. The arms were not on my list. Go figure.

Call Fiamma for sure.

This video might help once you get the parts:
https://youtu.be/WRX9Un5QLRQ

Rich

Just a little update.

I spoke with Fiamma in Orlando. I have been able to order replacements for both arms for $550 + $60 shipping. They should arrive early next week.

I have to order replacement awning fabric from a different company in Tampa. I'll report those results after they call me back.

I have to order replacement awning fabric from a different company in Tampa. I'll report those results after they call me back.

When I replaced the fabric on our awning three months ago, I could not find any suppliers of the fabric other than Fiamma. I phoned three suppliers of aftermarket awning fabrics, and all told me they did not make a replacement for the Fiamma awning and suggested buying directly from Fiamma. Fiamma uses a different attachment method.

Larry

When I replaced the fabric on our awning three months ago, I could not find any suppliers of the fabric other than Fiamma. I phoned three suppliers of aftermarket awning fabrics, and all told me they did not make a replacement for the Fiamma awning and suggested buying directly from Fiamma. Fiamma uses a different attachment method.

Larry

The gentleman from Fiamma (Malik) referred me to an awning company in Tampa. Fiamma only had gray or blue fabric. My LD is tan.

I'm in contact with the other company via email. They wrote back to confirm the type of awning I have. I will update my success or failure. :-)

Fiamma has blue fabric, and our rig is blue, so it worked out fine without issues.
I was puzzled why no one had fabric that would fit the Fiammas,the attachment does not seem much different than other awning brands.
Possible that there is not enough demand for Fiama fabric due lack of domestic users, as it is an Italian brand and used extensively on Euro RVs.

Larry

If push comes to shove, I'll go back to Fiamma and order the gray.

The awning arms arrive on Friday via FedEx.  Depending on the availability of my brother and sister-in-law, I can at least work on the arms since the fabric is still usable (not sure for how long).

Bet you thought I'd never come back!

Here is the deal. After paying Fiamma $610 for 2 new awning arms (incl shipping to TX), I was in contact with another company in Florida for new awning fabric to match my RV (Fiamma only had gray and blue available).

After much back and forth with the fabric company, they quoted me $219 plus shipping and tax. Mind you, I had to ask multiple times during August for pricing. When I asked for the full total with tax and shipping, I was ghosted. Have not heard from them since August 26th.

During one of the wait periods, I called Fiamma again and asked for the price of the gray fabric (I gave up on matching the color) and was quoted $459 with tax and shipping. This would have brought my total up to $1069 for the new arms and new fabric on an old awning. Malik at Fiamma said he noticed how much I was spending and felt he could help me save some money if I was willing to purchase a whole new, complete awning that had been returned for whatever reason (kind of a scratch-and-dent sale). This would be the F45s, which is the updated replacement of the F45i. He assured me that this would be a plug-and-play installation. Just remove the old awning and use all the same attachment points for the new one.

It took some weeks, but an awning with gray fabric was returned in good condition. He sent me pics so I could see for myself. My new total is $957.14. It will be a brighter white, not the Oxford white of the original, but I'm okay with that. The new awning will ship out at the beginning of next week.

I will be returning the arms for a refund. Luckily, I never opened the box because I was waiting for the weather to cool down before tackling the project.

Fiamma is rocking my world right now!

I'll update again when I can!

Today was finally *the* day. The weather was just right, and I had human help along with some heavy equipment.

My brother, my sister-in-law, and their kids (kids were comedy relief) came this morning to help me remove my old broken awning and replace it with the new one.

As Fimma promised, it was mostly plug-and-play, using the same connection points and hardware. We really winged it; I didn't even find or look at the instruction book until we got to the new awning. Didn't need it. The plates on which the old awning was hung and screwed in were better than the new plates. Lazy Daze screwed each of those plates with 10 screws, 5 on top and 5 on the bottom. The new plates only had room for 4 screws, 2 on top and 2 on the bottom. Needless to say, we kept the original plates.

The new awning is approximately 3 inches shorter in width than the original, so some of the unpainted exterior is visible on each side. We also had to screw the new awning to the bottom of the plates by drilling new holes in the awning to match the existing holes on the plates.

My brother used his skid steer to do all the heavy lifting. The whole project took about 2 hours.

I'm including a time-lapse of the whole process. The original video is about 2 1/2 minutes long, but I've slowed it down to about 5 minutes.

The time-lapse (https://photos.app.goo.gl/2pB31ujT5uVPRarD8).

Great job, Deb! 👍 The steer skid really helped, it looks like. Enjoyed the time-lapse video, thanks for sharing!

Nice work, buying the complete awning was a better solution, rebuilding the old awning would have been a much bigger project.
Jealous of the tractor, it would make some of these jobs a lot easier.

Larry

Amazing how having the 'right tool' makes things go much easier.  ;)
Congratulations on a job well done.

And when you don't have the right tool...

Here's an entry from my journal for September, 2016. I was boondocking with a friend in a secluded spot in the eastern Sierras, and needed to replace my 2003 Lazy Daze's awning. I bought 2x4s and 1x2s at a local hardware store and built a crude 2' x 4' workbench, topped with plywood. Then, under the direction of my friend, we built a large framework (see photo), and as my journal recounts...

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The framework we built leaned against the side of my rig at about a 45° angle and had four “steps” on each side—just 1’ lengths of 1x2 screwed to the sides at an angle. They gave us places to rest the awning. I stood on a step-stool at first, and then on our homebrew workbench, and lifted one end at a time onto the next step up, while my friend stabilized the other end. Lifting 35 pounds wasn’t hard.



When we got it to the top step, we tied safety lines from the roof around each end, just in case. (Why didn’t we hoist it from the ground up? Because the anchor points we had available on the roof weren’t strong enough for that.) Then we lifted it the last eight inches and tilted it just enough to drop it onto the three brackets. It took three tries to get it to snap into all three brackets. Even with the safety lines, it was scary!

That should have been the end of the hard part… but it turned out that between 2003 and now, Fiamma had changed the spacing of some internal parts just enough that drilling the holes from underneath the brackets was a problem in two out of three cases. I spent almost an hour scratching my head, wallowing out some holes and improvising around the problem, but finally got the awning firmly secured to all three brackets. Whew!

Total time was four hours, including building the scaffold.
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All credit for this successful backwoods installation goes to my friend, who figured out how to do it safely--I wouldn't have been smart enough.