Keder rail replacement for old pod with new r-dome

I bought the 14mm keder rail channels direct from Forest River, the only catch was I had to have them cut into 8' lengths for shipping.  It would have cost a small fortune to ship 16' long sections.  Total for 4 8' lengths of 14mm white keder channels was about $75 including shipping.

Once I received the rails, I noticed that they didn't have any holes drilled in them for mounting.  I took a tape measure and measured the 9mm rails on the pod and found the holes were about 6" apart, so I took a tape measure and marked every 6 inches on the new keder sections and drilled 5/32" holes in the center of the rail at those intervals, using a small groove in the channel as a guide.   I also drilled holes about 1" from each end.

Once I had all the holes drilled, I removed the 9mm keder rails from the pod.  I had hoped to use the same fasteners, but some of them along the top were rusted.  I made a run to the local Ace hardware and bought a box of 100 stainless steel phillips head screws that had the same style head and were just a little longer, which was the closest match I could find.

There was no way that the existing keder rail holes in the pod were going to match up with the new keder rails so I filled the holes in the pod with white silicone caulk.  Starting at the top in the middle of the pod, I lined up the new keder rail and drilled a small pilot hole in the pod using the keder as a guilde and them mounted the keder with one screw.  Then I kept aligning the keder properly, drilled another pilot hole and installed another screw.  It's handy to have two drills (one to make the pilot holes and another to drive the screws and a small folding scaffold to stand on).  The tricky part is making the bends in the keder along the top at the front and back of the pod.  I carefully bent the keder until it linedup with the pod, drilled a pilot hole and installed another screw and repeated the process.  Bending the keder was not too hard but as you bend it, it wants to warp and twist a little.  Once I got past the ends of where the old keder stopped, I trimmed off the excess channel before installing the last screw.

The bottom channel was pretty easy as there are no bends.  I did not run rail behind the wheel and tire like the old rail as the 2 8' sections would have met there and would require removing the wheel.  I didn't see why having keder rail behind the wheel would be beneficial, so I ran it until it went just under the fender.

Once all the rails were installed, I applied white silicone caulking to the rails.  The whole project took about 8 hours from start to finish.  Here's a few pictures of the installation.  I'm looking forward to trying out the dome on our next camping trip in a few weeks.