# Rear Slide Cover



## snsgraham (May 18, 2004)

Sorry to take so long, I've been busy with







other stuff! I will now try and make this story work.....wish me luck. Remember that some of this was written a couple of weeks ago.

Well here is the latest fella's.

This last weekend I finished installing all of the hardware for the new rear slide topper. After lots and lots of head scratchin and overcoming the fear of drilling holes on the OUTSIDE of our new Outback, the actual time spent working was around 3 hours, give or take.

The toughest part of the whole job was taking off the existing rain gutter. Six or seven hex head screws held on this thing on, but it was the grey colored clay like sealer that they used the full length of the gutter that was a PAIN to remove. It was really stuck to the TT and the gutter so once the screws were removed it was half an hour removing this stuff. So much for what I thought would be the easiest part of the job.

Hardware. To install the new aluminum rail in the spot where the old gutter was I used some #10 stainless steel sheet metal screws 3/4" long and some special pop rivets that Dometic required. They are a kind of molly rivet for use where the rail could not screw directly into the frame. I have never seen this kind of molly rivet before so, off to Camping World I went. The guy behind the service counter new exactly what they were, went out to the shop and came back with a handful of them and gave them to me. Pretty good customer service I would say! They are about 3/16" in diameter, 3/4" long, and have 4 slits in the sides of the rivet so it will expand like a molly once riveted in place. Pretty cool things and much stronger than a screw into the laminated sides of our Outbacks. From what I could feel when unscrewing the existing screws, only the end ones seemed to be into the frame. One thing I found after I started attaching the new rail was there is an imbedded aluminum frame about a 1/8" above and parallel to where most of the screws holding the old gutter. I had assumed that there was no aluminum framing in that area. The reason I found it was because when drilling some of the pilot holes for the new screws and rivets some were in aluminum frame and some were just on the edge of the aluminum. Sighting down the edge of the new rail I discovered that the old gutter was not put on straight but sort of wavy up and down. Consequently when the old holes were "waving up" I would hit aluminum and not when "waving down". What this boils down to is there are screws in aluminum, molly rivets where there is none and the whole rail is also stuck on with sealant so it is very sturdy. To do it again I would have moved the rail up a bit and filled the old holes with white sealant. All of the screws and rivets along with the rail had a liberal amount of sealant applied before installation.

The other end of the topper is attached to the upper corners of the slide. This is done by first making an 1/8" aluminum shim to fit under one corner of the bracket and then gluing it in place with sealant. After drilling pilot holes, all but two are screwed together with 1" long #10 stainless sheet metal screws. The hole that ends up being between the slide seal and the wall of the slide gets a 10-32 x 1/2" stainless screw with a washer and nut on the other side. The last hole on the outer most edge is drilled and tapped 10-32 and then a 3/8" long stainless machine screw applied there. I did it this way because the rubber seal for the slide is right behind where that screw goes. Again, liberal amounts of sealant were applied to all of the screws before installation. If I could get a grip on one of these brackets it would support all of my weight, they are very sturdy indeed.

There is a device that is included with the topper that would stop the topper from unrolling while underway. Because these toppers are designed to fit on the side of the TT, I did not feel the need to install it. There seems to be plenty of tension on the topper to keep it from coming unrolled while traveling.

All of the screws are stainless and Philips drive. All of the heads look alike once installation was finished.

After the screws, rivets and other hardware were fastened home I wiped all of the excess sealant off.

The sealant is 50 year exterior stuff, white, paintable, and remains flexible after curing.

Software. New material was needed because the topper only comes with 44" and our original plan was to use material called Sunbrella. That has turned out to be much more trouble than beneficial. Because of the long seams, I took the material to the local upholstery guy to be sewn into something to fit. It would have required a seam to run right up the middle because the fabric comes in a width that would have only worked that way. Along with a seam in the middle all of the edges surrounding the fabric would need to be lapped and sewn. What this would look like when rolled up would not be pretty. I also had figured the wind would sort of pass through this material so it would not be so susceptible flapping, wrong! Turns out Sunbrella is the same sort of fabric used to make sails for sailboatsâ€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.So what we had made is out of a marine grade material called STAMOID (Part# F-3933)used for making boat covers and such. It is a new material that is really thin, UV/stain/mildew resistant, very strong and remains flexible at cold temps. The guy charged $30 per yard, it only needs 2-1/2 yards to do the job, then $30 to sew in the 1/8" and 3/16" plastic rods that are needed in each end of the topper. The plastic rods were taken from the original Dometic topper. What this means is there are no seams at all and it looks great when finished.

After rolling all of the new material onto the drum, I unrolled 4 turns (trial and feel) and then slid it into the awning rail. This must be done so the extra material will not put too much tension on the spring inside the drum. There is more effort needed to pull out the slide, but it is minimal. The only issue that might have to be addressed is some way to "de-flapper" it when it gets too windy, but I am working on that too.

Oh, and by the way the European company that makes STAMOID is part of the Ferrari Group, gotta make the Outback faster as well. Ok, maybe not but, we might get better gas mileage?

The leaning curve has been more expensive than I wanted it to be but what the heck, nobody has done this before! For the most part just following the included directions with the exceptions that I have noted. Doing this the way we are now, a guy would be in this project for under $400 and would end up with a very nice looking and functional Outback rear slide topper. Imagineâ€¦.no more leaves, pine needles, dirt and water to fuss with at the end of a campout! Just slide the slide in and sweep off the topper at the same time. The added benefit of not having rain that sounds like gravel falling above ones head is an added bonus!

Pictures are here. I wish I could put them in some kind of chronological order but they are not







.

Edit...For those of you that would like to see the original posts on this click here.


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## Paul_in_Ohio (Sep 29, 2004)

Sounds Great!














I can't wait to see this mod. Do you have specs and costs?

I spent one loud, long night in a rain storm and new this was going to be done sooner than later on my mod list.

Thanks for all your hard work! Is it Saturday yet???


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## Y-Guy (Jan 30, 2004)

Good deal Scott I look forward to seeing what you've put together. Any plans to try to get the manufacturers to pick up and run with it?


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## snsgraham (May 18, 2004)

Paul,
I have been keeping track of and taking pictures of just about everything. All of the steps, hardware and learning mistakes are going to chronicled. Final cost's included.

Steve,
I am waiting to finish this and then haul it down to Camping World. They want to see it when I have finished it so they can appraise the results. I am not going to pursue the manufacturer myself unless CW will run interference. That said this is way too easy of a mod now that I have figure out the "ins and outs" of what needs to be done.

More to follow







!!!!

Scott


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## Thor (Apr 7, 2004)

Scott

I cannot wait to see the pics of your mod. It sounds great









Thor


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## Paul_in_Ohio (Sep 29, 2004)

Scott,

How did things go on Saturday? Did you get rained out again? How did the pictures look? Will you be posting them soon? Should I stop asking questions now?









Give us an update! We're dieing here!!!


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## snsgraham (May 18, 2004)

I am sorry fella's, I did not get rained out but have been a little under the weather. My long lost cousin called my DW friday from New York city and said he was flying (literaly) into Seattle, was laying over til Sunday, and wanted to visit.
Sorry Outbackers, Cous comes first.

I did finish the topper up Sunday and just have to sit down and complete the text and the pictures.

Please standby!

Scott

Post Script....this thing looks and works awsome!!!


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## Paul_in_Ohio (Sep 29, 2004)

Understandable. Blood is thicker than bandwidth. Just looking forward to all the details on this project.


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## snsgraham (May 18, 2004)

If I were not at work I could get the text finished. Work..yeah, I still have to pay for the TT









Scott


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## snsgraham (May 18, 2004)

I have edited the top of this thread with all of the juicy details, look up!


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## Y-Guy (Jan 30, 2004)

Looks VERY sharp. You did a great job on the install!


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## hatcityhosehauler (Feb 13, 2004)

Wow! That looks like it was meant to be there all along. I don't know why the commercial slide topper guys didn't think of this already. I will definately be giving this one a close look for possible mod to my 26RS

Thanks for sharing!

Tim


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## mswalt (Sep 14, 2004)

Man,

That looks like it was installed at the factory! Looks really good!

Now......if you'll just come to Texas and do mine.









Congrats.

Mark


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## Paul_in_Ohio (Sep 29, 2004)

WOW!

that needs to be said again... WOW!

You did a fantastic job!

This is something I will be saving my lunch money for this spring. Looks like this just moved up the list of mods to tackle when the cover comes off the camper in '05. $400 dollars for it is not as bad as I thought it would be.

If I read this correctly, you bought the slide topper, screws, rivets, sheet alluminum stock, and the canvas. What slide topper did you get? From where? Camping World? Where did you get the alluminum stock from? The sail material you purchased: Does it come in any colors? It would be nice if I could get something to match the blue awning.

I will have more questions in the spring, but I will start with these to set up my orders.

Thank you for all your time and effort on this. The pictures are fantastic and will hopefully help sell my wife on the mod. She gets very nervous anytime I take anything that can make a hole near the TT. (I still have to convince her of the benifits of the surge tank for the water pump!)


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## NDJollyMon (Aug 22, 2003)

Swwwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeet!!!!

And thanks for taking the time to explain, and post pics! You're going to have to answer a million questions now!


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## California Jim (Dec 11, 2003)

VERY nice job. Looks like a factory installation. Congrats


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## camping479 (Aug 27, 2003)

Looks great, nice mod









Mike


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## CamperDC (Oct 30, 2003)

Hello,

Yes, my name is CamperDC and I am calling to schedule an appointment to have a rear slide topper installed. Do you have any openings today?

Man that is a sweet job. That should get the mod of year award or something.

Great job.


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

Great looking mod but as Jolly said you will get a million questions and here are two.

The rail attached to the back of the trailer, Was there a particular reason to have the mounting screws on the top? Seeing only pictures I may be missing something but to get more slope you could have had the mounting groove above the screws. This would give more slope and weather protect the screws.

The drum the awning is rolled up on, what is the limit on the number of turns it can take? The original piece of material was shorter so with the new longer awning it will have to roll more to take it all up. Does it seem okay on spring tension?

Again great mod and looking forward to trying one myself along with the side slide.


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## snsgraham (May 18, 2004)

Thanks for all of the compliments guy's shy , it was nothin', really!

OK, I have some esplainen' to do............

I did get the topper at Camping world but for the life of me I cannot find the reciept shy I am sorry to say. Push comes to shove I could get the info from CW cause they would have a record of it. It is a Dometic Slide Topper, 96" x 44" and was polar white.

I decided not to use the Sunbrella for reasons listed and it was sort of a sand color. Very glad that we decided to do white however. It really disappears when rolled up.

I attached the awning rail the way I did because if the other side was up it would hold dirt, pine needles, etc. and when that got wet it would stay wet along time. Stuff would most likely start growing up there.










Honestly, I do not know what the limit of the drum turns would be. I just sort of played it by feel. How much tension the drum had on it when it was fully rolled out was how I came up with four wraps unrolled from the drum. The tension when rolled up is still enough to hold the thing nice and tight. When rolling it out (my slide is manual) you can feel the difference with the topper pulling out at the same time.

The aluminum pieces were cut out of some stuff I had laying around my shop, very common though. Probably find at Home Depot or any GOOD hardware store.

I am more than willing to help anybody that wants to take this job on. The first one is always the toughest, lots of head scratchin, you know. My estimate for putting one on once all of the parts are assembled is about 4 hours, give or take.









Scott


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## RVCarolina (Jul 31, 2004)

Wow! That has got to be the most AWESOME Outback "mod" yet!
I'm sure that has inspired more than a few of us - Great job! And thanks for
all the effort put forth in sharing this classy AND functional mod.
Fred


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

[quote name='snsgraham' date='Nov 30 2004, 09:51 PM']
Thanks for all of the compliments guy's shy , it was nothin', really!

...snip...
I am more than willing to help anybody that wants to take this job on. The first one is always the toughest, lots of head scratchin, you know. My estimate for putting one on once all of the parts are assembled is about 4 hours, give or take.









------

That has got to be the best offer I heard all YEAR! And to make it even better (for me) I'm only 2hrs away in Portland, Oregon.

What's your favorite drink? I'll bring what every you desire..









I'll be in contact with ya next summer for sure.

Jim


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## kjdj (Sep 14, 2004)

Great job!
The only improvement I can see is move the awning rail up as close to the clearance lights as possible. 
This would give you more slope to shed the rain better and prevent puddling.

I think you win at least MOD of the YEAR award.


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## Not Yet (Dec 13, 2004)

This is one of the most practical upgrades I have seen; very nice job. It bothers me that we need to buy one with fabric that would then go to waste. So, I wrote to Dometic's awning division customer support and asked if it is possible to purchase just the hardware. I have Not Yet received a reply, but will post as soon as I do. It may take a group order to convince, so if you are interested in doing this mod try to hold off on purchasing the available SlideTopper until we see if Dometic is willing to play. The power of multiple customers and economy of scale should work in our favor.

Jared


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