Penthouse is ailing!

[mjeffrey]

Hey JRO - I put in 2" of spacer blocks. It made a difference, but the top's still pretty hard to lift. I do have a solar panel up there, too. SMB told me that 2" was the max, but I couldn't get out of them whether that was a 'hard' max (ie. any more and there wouldn't be enough room for the bars to lie flat, and they'd bend), or just a recommendation. It does affect the top coming down, needing more of a pull to get it down, but it's a fine trade-off.

I took it past Fresno last year on my roadtrip, and asked them to adjust the springs for me. It came back worse than when I dropped it off! I'll pull back the fabric when the weather gets nicer and see what they did, and probably put my 2" of wood in there again (4 x 1/2" plywood squares).

Cheers,
Mike.

[JRO]

It is far from rocket science and I just expected the BEST solution had popped out of the woodwork by now so I would not have to take the time to become a "spring expert" to resolve a simple problem many of us have. I suspect the "stock" spring was not really "engineered" to work but rather a trial and error result. My initial problem was that this spring rattled about making noise just going down the road... I solved that with a fabric wrap.
Now, I'll try the 2" wood spacer but it is a poor solution in my mind. I'd rather have the engineered spring sized to do the job properly. Oh well...

The other penthouse problems I have is the corner stubby screws that hold the canvas to the top have pulled out pulling the ceiling "ply" down at the corners. Also, the adhesive (I think) is dripping down in the front leaving ugly stains. I don't know where all the moisture is coming from but I assume moisture is involved diluting whatever glue they used. Am I the only one with these problems and if not... How did you fix it?