RDome channel

On our first outing this summer to test out our "new" rPod, I wanted to put the RDome up in the evening instead of waiting til the morning. It was such a struggle getting the dome through the channel. It kept getting snagged. We finally were able to do it. We are going to the NE RoundUp and so we have been fine tuning mods and adding some things as we plan to be out for about a week. I studied the dome channel and was stunned to see all the rough edges to it. FR put in large screws and the heads of these screws are bigger than the channel opening! So every screw they put in, gouged the channel! Then they had to paint over the gouge, leaving paint drips that were also an issue. So this week I took a Dremel and filed down the gouges as much as I could and carefully reprinted those areas. We located screws with smaller heads that won't cut the channel. We plan on replacing all the screws that FR put in because they are large and square and poke into the channel so they also impeded the dome from going through. I don't understand why FR chose to use screws that did so much damage to the channel and also poked into the channel afterwards, making it difficult to slide the Rdome through. It just seems like common sense to use smaller head screws.
   We also added some strong tensil strength strips to each end of the RDome plastic channel thing so we can pull on them instead of the RDome fabric.

Ours were not Phillips, but square head, so there was no burring. But many of the screws were put in crooked so they would stick out and not be flush with the rPod. Just not quality work. Ours was built in 2010 but is considered a 2011. I really hope they have improved the channel with the newer ones!

Ditto, Paige. Our 2010, manufacturer early 2010, late 2009, had square drive screws driven every which way in the track. I noted that the result of pushing the screw heads thru te Chanel edges was a burr that seemed to cause some paring of the dome plastic edging, but there I also damage due to the screw heads. I just replaced all 28 screws with brass flat head screws, and tried to get the heads flatter than the original screws. I will report later this weekend on the result. BTW the add of the alum pull bracket make a huge difference in installing the dome!

Walt

No: I made it myself.