Sometimes I have trouble sleeping. I have no problem getting to sleep. I usually go to bed between 9 and 10pm because I try to get up at 5am so I can be at work at 6:30am. I am a morning person and generally do my best work before noon. I also like ending my work day at 3PM.
My sleep problem comes from the fact that I often wake up between 2 and 3AM and can't get back to sleep. Usually I run through software problems in my head and have managed to find many solutions during my late night study sessions. Last night, however, my thoughts turned toward Frostbite.
The roof/door issue has been troubling me. If you recall from a previous post, I mentioned that it "appeared" that the roof on the door side was 4 to 5 inches too low. The opening for the door was too small for the door I had. I could push the roof up by hand and force it in there to make it fit but it seemed, even to my non-mechanical mind, that it was not a good thing that the little aluminum door had to then support the weight of the roof on that side of the camper. This, I surmised, could be the reason why the door was falling apart in the first place and my plans to re glue and rebuild the door would still result in the door being tore up because of this.
I was thinking of getting some metal rods that I could use as props to help support the roof on that side when the camper was up but knew that I would have trouble doing this because it would take 2 people with a good bit of strength to make it happen. One person would have to push the roof up by hand like a weightlifter while another person would have to push and wedge the support poles into position. My wife, while always more than willing to help, definitely does NOT do well if that help involves using a lot of strength.
I was mulling this around when the epiphany hit. One feature of this camper that I had mentioned only in passing in earlier posts is that it has an awning. You can see it on the roof in this picture:
It has its own problems that I haven't gotten to examining fully. The awning is rolled up in a bag and the zipper must be broke on the bag because it is completely open. A bungee cord on each end is holds it together. The bag and, I assume, the awning itself is attached to the roof. It is actually ripping from the roof about 5 or 6 inches on one end. I've been putting off opening it up because I'm not sure there is enough room between Frostbite and my neighbor's car.
I'm sure by now you can guess how this relates to my problem with the door but it took three weeks for it to occur to me. The awning rolled up is, by my estimation, 50 to 70 pounds. Also, the awning is generally unrolled and set up when the camper is popped up. I've been just rolling the whole thing back onto the roof and popping up the camper. I am now 99% certain that the added weight of the awning is pushing down on the roof on the door side not only making my door not appear to fit but probably contributing directly to why it is nearly destroyed.
The New York Dude didn't warn me about this but, since the camper was put up with the awning rolled up on top just like I have been doing it when we first went to see the camper, he may not have been aware of it either.
I am stuck a bit in that I really don't want to have to set up the awning every time I pop up Frostbite to work on her. Even if I just unroll it, the awning would cover the door and make going in and out a pain. I wonder if I could unroll it and then drape it back over the entire roof but then worry that the weight would then be spread out over the entire roof making it sag evenly an inch or two and my door still wouldn't fit properly. I wonder if I could take the thing off of the camper entirely until I get the inside and outside finished. I opted for this option and will cross the bridge of putting the awning back on when I come to it.
Very, very pleased with this realization, I attempted to go back to sleep and finally drifted into a deep, dream inducing slumber about 20 minutes before my alarm went off.
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