Sliding door shade / cover

[Strettyp]

From time to time I want to pull up somewhere in the great outdoors for an hour or so and would like some sort of simple cover/porch which meant I could leave the side door open for air etc but not worry about rain coming straight in

I have a reimo shade with poles and guy ropes when on a campsite but this is overkill for what I need and not always possible in laybys etc

I've done a quick Google but not found anything like it - I'm thinking something that would slide into a c-rail then be supported by either a pole or something on the step

I'm thinking this is a none starter to buy - a fiamma type thing is too big / expensive for my occasional use so unless someone can come up with something I'm going to have a bash at making something!

 

[Bav]

We're all going to keep quiet, wait for you to come up with something brilliant and then shamelessly copy.

 

[Strettyp]

You've obviously not seen my handy work

I've got a design in my head and I'll rig up a prototype for you to all take the mickey out of

 

[True Romance]

Have been thinking the same recently. Looking forward to your idea.

 

[Bav]

I'm confident in my DIY one-downmanship against almost everyone.

 

[JumpShip]

Watching this with interest
I have thought long and hard about this and have some ideas but thats as far as i've got with the project .

 

[roadtripper]

I have exactly the same need and tried to make an arrangement using some ripstop similar to my tailgate magnetic rain guards.

I have a small strip to put between the top of the open slider door and the roof which stops light rain from soaking the inside of the open door and that works reasonably well.

I then tried to make (with Mrs RT sewing) a longer section to hang out about a foot over the open door and door aperture. I had some inspiration from sailing and decided to try and make some battens to hold the fabric stuff and put magnets in them to hold them to the roof.

So far this has not been a success as the battens (made out of 25mm conduit) work well to stiffen but the curve of the roof means the magnets don't hold well. The other issue is the battens twist as there is nothing holding the shaed in tension along the roof apart from them so any small breeze it moves.

I do have a roof gutter awning rail on one side and did consider using awning stops though the back of the battens to anchor them a bit but it was simply too fiddly and negated the point, I don't think it would have helped anyway.

I may try again with lighter battens and I did consider using the heavy duty magnet mounts you can get for lights - the issue then is the cloth and magnet guards roll away into a tiny space so they can live in the van - a set of 2 maybe 3 big magnet arms not so much.

So this shows my smaller rainguard for the open door and an attempt to use 25mm conduit lid as batten anchored at the back with an awning stop in the rail:



An alternative I considered was a set of springy school rulers as battens but they were not really long enough as they have to sit on enough of the roof for the magnets to grip



What remains a success are the tailgate rainguards. This season I also made up some bungee cords to go from the tailgate stop to the bottom of the tailgate rams - with a few clips that really supports the flapping rear in a wind. We also made one to fill in the roof to tailgate gap of the right length (mark1 was too short)



I'll try and get some pictures of the final attempt for the side - it doesn't work successfully as is but might trigger some inspiration.

 

[roadtripper]

In case it helps with inspiration another approach I'm contemplating is that you can get Kador type edge strip to repair awnings. I do wonder about just sewing some of this onto the edge of a ripstop nylon panel.

AWNING RAIL PIPING KEDER STRIP 6mm DOUBLE FLAP camping tent sailing marquee | eBay

Keder 6mm Double Flap Black with Solid PVC Core Exellent Quality. -Solid PVC core in natural colour - a solid PVC core is easier to feed into the channel.

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Supporting the panel is then the issue. I had thought about a suction cup on the open slider window and the front window and some sort of pole, I just think it would need a guy like somewhere.

I like the thought of using a pole off the steps as we have some poles for the Debus awning that I think we could find a place to leave in, the issue is what happens in a gust of wind. With a simple cloth and battens even if it does break free there is not a lot to Wang around and hit the van sides or windows, one I think about poles and suction cups there is...

 

[Strettyp]

Wow - the challenge which you've identified is that you don't want something cumbersome that takes up space when it's only an occasional use item, but at the same time is robust enough to deal with the weather

I've been thinking about cannibalising a pop up toilet tent connected to the c-rail and then using some sort of prop that would hold it out and stop it flapping to some degree - you can pick them up for around £20 and would provide a weatherproof material in a collapsible frame

This sort of thing (hilariously badly photoshopped lady not included)



Anything rigid will take up too much space and then become an engineering task as you'd need to joint it together

 

[roadtripper]

Right you lovely lot it's sunny and I'm trying to avoid getting to my desk so I went and did some pictures...

This is the Mark 1 side awning. The pockets are 2 lengths of 25mm conduit lid siliconed together back to back with 3 x 25mm magnets in the rear part sandwiched in. The rear seam also has 2 further magnets in per panel.



This is how small it rolls up to for storage



So on the usual passenger side it looks like this deployed




It's meant to sit back up to the first roof ridge with magnets to hold it and the seam down there, with another set of magnets in the battens to grip the edge of the roof other side of the gutter.

You can see even without wind though the issue is the outer edge doesn't stay in tension, the outer battens just twist in.

Ironically the big issue is at the front my awning rail is slightly proud of the gutter meaning the front batten never gets a good grip as it rocks on it.




But I realised this morning I've never tried it drivers side where there is no awning rail, and it does sit a little better on that side:

 

[roadtripper]

And some bonus footage of the more successful soft rainguards.

This is both rear quarter guards and to top guard fitted - the risk here is sliding magnets scratching so all of them mount on inner surfaces. I do plan to put some helicopter tape there and I'd really recommend it if you do similar.



And this is the side door guard. Again to minimise scratches the aim is for the magenta to attach to the back of the door skin and then the other side tucks into the edge of the roof gutter with the magnets sticking to the side of the gutter to help hold in tension:




The great thing is these all fold up into a small stuff bag (for storage but also to stop the soaking other stuff if wet) that lives in then kitchen pod drawer (along with 2 bungee if windy)



And why is everything dayglo orange? To prevent stupidity like closing things without removing

 

[roadtripper]

I've been thinking about cannibalising a pop up toilet tent connected to the c-rail and then using some sort of prop that would hold it out and stop it flapping to some degree - you can pick them up for around £20 and would provide a weatherproof material in a collapsible frame

I had a similar thoughts with hacking a cheap beach shelter and putting a Kador strip on the back, cutting out the base sheet and putting a suction cup at the bottom of the front "legs" to form a porch like structure. This was more before the Caravelle when I wanted to make a cheap tailgate tent for the XC70, but it might work on the side doors?

Freespirit Wave Deluxe Beach Shelter | GO Outdoors

When it’s time to take a break from the sun, enjoy the shade in style with the Wave Deluxe Beach Shelter from Freespirit. The Deluxe edition of this summer shelter has received a size upgrade, allowing you to fit more people or gear inside – perfect for family days at the beach.

www.gooutdoors.co.uk

 

[Bav]

Taking inspiration from a tent we had that had a "brow" cover over each side-entrance, could you not fashion a semi-circular piece of canvas, add a Kador strip down the straight edge (using rail stoppers if necessary), sew a channel around the curved edge (adding reinforcement at either end) and then slide a fibreglass tent pole through that channel?

By ensuring the tent pole was longer than the straight edge, you could keep the tent pole bent, thereby keeping the canvas under tension. It would then be a matter of counteracting the brow's natural tendency to either flip up or droop down by way of 2 rigid battens, one at each side - these could be permanently attached, equidistantly, to the curved edge of the canvas and temporarily attached to van's bodywork via a neodymium magnet (obviously wrapped in cloth so as to prevent paintwork damage).

Given my above-mentioned lack of DIY skills, this is completely theoretical, but would appear to be workable and would be very easy to deploy, remove and store.

 

[roadtripper]

I've looked at repurposing the tent poles before and you have to find something the right length and weight because cutting the fibreglass is awful and you really need them to be held together by the elastic. Also you have to get a pretty accurate seam placement to.make sure the whole surface is in tension. My seamstress said no which is why we didn't go further in that route, though if you can find something already sewn to adapt that would be a lot easier.

The issue is more the wind getting under it and flipping it up and what happens then to any flailing attached poles hitting the van.

I've found to my slight cost that cloth wrapped magnets will still scratch, you need to have something like rubber that will grip. And for me larger rubber covers mag mounts or suction cups take up too much space.

Potentially given that such a panel will be held up slightly by the roof edge as a gutter awning rail is set back it might work with a bit of a guy line down to a decent suction mount. My preference is to mount to the glass as I've had suction cups scuff paint in the past. That way everything is a bit softer and lighter, but I suspect you'd lose the use of the front door - which is an issue for me as I don't have swivels in the Caravelle.

Something like these:

Outwell Suction Cup Set For Drive Away Awning, car connection - Grasshopper Leisure

The Touring Connect Set connects your drive-away awning or sun canopy to the car roof. Part number 651109.

www.grasshopperleisure.co.uk

 

[Bav]

Probably easier to size the canvas to match an existing tent pole TBH, but I take your point re the wind, though I'd be unlikely to want to sit with the slider open when it's windy.

 

[ginkster]

How about something like this with some material over the elastic to provide cover? Saw it at the NEC this year. It is for the California rail but could potentially be modified (or copied) using the threaded awning rail stoppers you can get.



Available from Campervantastic



Awning rail stopper:

 

[roadtripper]

It's not until you get some awning stoppers you grasp how tiny they are



Also they seem to work by bottoming out the screw thread on the bottom of the channel and they thread slip really easily (at least the two sets I ordered to experiment with). To stop an awning slip along the track I think they are fine, for anything more mechanical I think they are too small, will chew the bottom of the track and likely pull out the top leaving the track slightly spread.

 

[roadtripper]

But on similar lines I did wonder about getting either magnetic or suction mount flag pole holders to trial - for me they are possibly too bulky for my aim of keeping in the van but...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/KUMA-Magnetic-Antenna-Pole-Mount/dp/B019H5V9LW/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/OFFSCH-Flagpole-Bracket-Magnetic-Suction/dp/B0C3BFH9HK/

Also these are the kind of heavy rubber magnets mounts I mentioned earlier

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PICAA-Mounting-Brackets-Magnetic-Windshield/dp/B09NNMC46B/

 

[RoyT]

I was intending o play around with the idea of using a spare caravan awning skirt which drops down from the caravan about 600mm. If you put it in the VW van awning rail it should be enough to cover the doors and be able to leave the doors slightly open when raining without the water going in the van. It has holes in the bottom of it as well so might work with unright poles.

 

[roadtripper]

Welcome to the forum @RoyT !

That's an interesting thought, especially if you're not lucky enough to live with a theatre and costume seamstress

There does seem to be a fair few of us that just want a side awning that comes out a couple of foot at most unsupported that you could quickly deploy in car parks layby etc where a full sun awning is too much and likewise a full retractable awning.

I have also contemplated some simple roof rails to give something to clamp on to and possibly mount some solar on - but right now I really like that the Caravelle mostly looks like a boring executive taxi when parked up.