Awemazing Awning! XRV Lance Progress Update; 14 Dec. 2025
Zoe & Razz have been enjoying their winter coats during the recent cold spell here. All things relative of course so that has been temperatures down to as low as 2C/36F at night and not getting much above 10C/50F in the daytime. But it is always sunny here so that makes it pretty easy to take and feels much warmer as long as you stay in the sun. 
However with Christine’s return they are now just back from their day at the Puppy Spa so thought you’d enjoy these before and after pics.
As for this week’s update I’m going to bring you up to present time with the latest project I’ve just completed; installing the new Fiama awning! I’ll get back to catching up with all the progress on Lance since we got back from our summer maiden voyage out to the East Coast and back but I thought you’d enjoy seeing the latest project. To be honest I’m doing this in part because it will be a bit shorter update as I’ve been taken down a peg or two with my first experience with Shingles. Ouch! As those of you who have had them will know this is eXtremely painful and not something I’ wish on my worst enemy. However I’m recovering well and not looking quite so much like an escapee from a Leper Colony but fighting this off has definitely zapped my energy a bit for the past two weeks and hence this shorter blog post today. 
When the weather is nice we like to spend most of our days camping enjoying the sunny outdoors, such as this spot in Dinosaur Provincial Park just east of Calgary in Alberta this past July. But we’re heading for Baja in a few weeks and we do like the hotter weather when some shelter from the sun and at times the rain allows us to stay outside longer. So we’ve been researching what retractable awning would be the Goldilocks, just right, just for us. 
We wanted an awning that would extend out from the Passenger Side PS as that’s where we tend to set up our table and chairs when camping and one that would be very quick and easy to extend and retract so that we’d use it frequently. After some research we settled on the Italian made Fiama 14’ F45S awning with a “Titanium” colour housing. 
It took a few weeks to get to us but I was able to get a good price with free shipping from Vanlife Outfitters and I picked it up from a freight terminal in Las Vegas which is less than an hour’s drive from our place here on Road Runner Ranch. The box it shipped in was just a bit over 14’/4.3M long so that roll down rear window in Totu (our 2006 Toyota Tundra) comes in very handy for extending the length of items I pick up without sticking out the rear too much. 
It was very well packaged for shipping with lots of very tough angled cardboard corners on all sides so it arrived in perfect condition. 
The awning comes with three of these extruded Aluminium brackets which hook into the extruded Aluminium on the back of the awning body itself so I just needed to come up with a way of securely fastening these brackets to the top PS roof corner on Lance’s Hab. (Habitat/Box)
The awning housing needed to clear the top of the doors on the PS which extend almost all the way to the top of Lance’s Hab so I set out to design some strong brackets that would be eXtremely strong and secure to mount the awning housing at the front, middle and rear. 
I keep all the cut offs from the XAL or eXtruded Aluminium that I used to build all the cabinet framing inside Lance and just love working with this stuff so I was particularly delighted to find that the T-slot in the 10 Series 1 inch square XAL wedged itself perfectly into the L shaped aluminium gutter rails that runs down the top sides of Lance’s Hab. Sometimes you luck out!
This is the design I came up with. Solid and Simple; four small lengths of XAL with four corner gussets to bolt them all together. 
You’ll see that I’ve built these such that the top edge of these XAL brackets ends up at the same height as the top of the steel Super Strut rails you saw me affix to Lance’s rooftop for mounting the solar panels. This allowed me to bolt a short length of 2” wide 3/16” AL bar stock to the top of the XAL squares and then bolt through the Super Strut into the captured nuts that slide into these rails. 
These captured nuts twist lock in place using the blue plastic flanges to hold them right where you want them before tightening the 1/4” through bolt. In the middle bracket you see here as well as the rear one, the flat bar supports fit nicely into the 40mm/1.5” space I left between the bottom of the solar panel frames and the Super Strut. 
Here is what the finished installation looks like with the Fiama bracket now bolted into the top T-slot of the XAL bracket. 
This closeup shows how perfectly the bottom T-slot fits into the L shaped AL rain gutter that is part of the top corner extrusions on Lance’s roof. 
After I had them all dry fitted and checked that the three brackets were where Fiama wants them, I put in a bead of that same 8X Loctite industrial adhesive I used to affix the Super Strut to the roof top so these brackets are definitely on there for good! 
Being all aluminium construction whole awning only weighs 27Kg/60lbs so it wasn’t too much of a lift for Christine and I on two ladders to lift it up and slide the awning into the brackets. 
Once the awning is in place the final step is to drill through these holes you see on the bottom lip of the Fiama brackets and bolt the awning securely to the brackets. 
We like to keep things simple whenever we can so we went with the fully manual style that uses the little crank you see here to roll the awning in and out. If we ever wanted to Fiama makes an electric motor that bolts to the end and let’s you roll the awning in/out with the touch of a switch but we think this simple crank method will suit us best.
To help secure the outer edge of the awning these two extendable legs clip into brackets I mounted on the bottom edge of Lance’s Hab.
I have Lance parked too close to the 40 foot shipping container that is my workshop and on the far left here so I couldn’t get a picture for you of the awning fully extended to the 2.5M/8.2 ft that it goes but I’ll be sure to grab a photo when we hit the road down to Baja in a few weeks.
And that’s the wrap for this week and likely this year folks! We leave in Lance next week to drive down to spend Xmas week with our Granddaughters in the LA area and then we’ll hit the road and point ourselves South to spend the first few months of the new year exploring the beautiful Baha peninsula.
My sincere thanks to YOU for taking the time to join us on these adventures and send us your questions and comments. Adds SO much to our experiences to have so many others to share it all with. Hope you too have a fabulous holiday and I’ll be back early in the New Year with more updates on both our travels and the ongoing work to transform our beloved Lance into the XRV of our dreams!
See you next year!!!
Wayne, Christine, Zoe & Razz
Easily one of the most used and most important areas for our day to day live in Lance and our 10,000 + mile “maiden voyage” this past summer proved that our design worked well as we used it during that two month test drive. We prioritized large areas of open countertop, dual deep sink, induction cooktop and large fridge and freezer and you can see the basic layout from the 3D model screengrab here. 
Underneath both countertops it is all drawers as we find these much more efficient to use than cupboards and overall we have more than 20 drawers inside of Lance. 
I have always preferred dovetail joints for all drawers given their superior strength that stands up for decades of use and I think they look great too and so that’s what we went with for Lance. I was going to do this all myself but with almost a hundred dovetailed corners to do and SO many other jobs demanding my time and attention I decided to job this out. I found a fabulous company to work with called 
They shipped all the pre-cut drawers to me as flatpacks like this so the whole shipment of all the drawers was not too large and they were all very well shrink wrapped and carefully boxed up so they arrived with no damage at all. 
They also offered a great prices on the the top quality Blum undermount ball bearing drawer slides I wanted so it all came as a single order which made my life easier.
Mounting more than 40 drawer slides to the XAL framework was very straightforward but time consuming to get them all exactly parallel and lined up. 
and some required a bit of Houdini moves to hold in place and tighten up. 
Next, I set up a little workbench on top of the PS Galley counter to assemble each drawer. 
Each set of dovetails only required a few drops of wood glue and they went together very well with two bar clamps and some taps with my little hammer to get the joints to fit together all the way. The dovetails were so precise that every drawer went together perfectly square and were solid as a rock. 
The Blum drawer slides required two slots in the bottom of each rear drawer side so I cut those out next and then I mounted to the Orange locking hardware to the bottom of the front corners. These are where the drawer slides clip into the drawer and make it very easy to lift out a drawer at any time. It’s a great system! 
Installing each drawer was now a simple process of pulling out each drawer slide………. 
………… setting the pins in the rear of each drawer slide into the corresponding holes I had previously drilled and pushing them closed till they clicked in place. 
Et Voila! We’ve got drawers! Sad to say that I wasn’t able to get this done before we left on our big summer adventure so we REALLY appreciate having these now! 
I wanted all surfaces of these drawers to have a tough durable finish and decided to go with this two part Rubi Monocoat finish that you put on by hand with cloths rather than brush or spray. Hand rubbed finishes have always been my favorite and while this was a new one for me I was eXtremely pleased with the end result and the whole process of applying it. 
It was a bit laborious and a good workout but a very satisfying process for me. 
Difficult to see in photos but the Baltic Birch plywood came out with a glowing warm colour and a very tough finish that is also very easy to reapply in the future. 
To reduce the loss of usable space under the sinks I used these low profile P-traps which have turned out to work very well. 
and only required a small cut out on the rear of the two under sink drawers to clear nicely. 
For lighting, I decided to use COB (Circuit on Board) LED strip lights which I set inside lengths of 20mm wide black aluminium U channel which I ran in between each of the White PVC ceiling planks. I like these newer COB strips for two reasons; they provide an uninterrupted line of light rather than individual points of light in the regular LED strips and they can be adjusted from about 2200K (very warm amber) up to 6500K (daylight white). 
Once I had the layout done and the strips of PVC and AL channel cut to length, the process went quite quickly. I could apply the construction adhesive to each plank and AL channel and press them up into place and then use my super handy cargo jacks and some scrap lengths of XAL to press these all up against the ceiling so they ended up flat and aligned. 
You can buy the COB LED lights in 20 meter rolls which you then cut to the lengths you want and solder three wires to the copper strips underlying the Yellow COB light strips. Takes a bit of practice to get these tight solder joints without any cross connections but all went pretty well after a few practice solders. 
Then I twist the wires to help reduce any electrical interference and slide a clear tube of heat shrink tubing over the joints and shrink them in place for a nice clean and protected connection.
……………. I could now press these clear covers in place. 
Here’s the result at about 6000k. These LED light strips are also fully dimmable so you can adjust both the colour temp from warm to cold white and from off to full almost daylight brightness.
Living the nomadic and remote life that we always have, we are big fans having solar power be the primary source for all our daily electrical needs, which are quite extensive. On our boat Mobius we had factored solar panels into the design from the beginning and were able to have 16 large panels on three different roof surfaces on that boat such as these eight panels on the upper Pilot House roof. 
And here on Road Runner Ranch we have 18 solar panels in two banks, this one just set against one of our 40 foot shipping containers and the others you can see Razz laying on above. These keep our big EG4 Wall Mount 15kW battery charged up every day and running this through our EG4 6000XP Inverter/Charger provides all our electrical power for day to day life here. 
This is where the time I spent meticulously building Lance in a 3D model using Fusion 360 pays off. I could create a model for each of the different solar panels that I was considering and see how they would fit onto Lance’s roof and on the framing. 
After much deliberation and testing in the model, I decided to go with four SilFab 420 Watt QD panels which I purchased from Current Connected almost a year ago now. I was able to get these all installed this past May in time to help power us on our marathon maiden voyage with Lance driving out to Portland Maine and back this summer. For those interested you can see all the specs of these panels here and of course with the march of time since there would now be even higher output panels but we’ve still ended up with 1680 Watts of solar power and it has been more then enough to keep us fully powered all the time. 
I
I added additional 4 foot lengths of Super Strut so that I would have a mounting system for the whole 14 foot length of Lance’s roof for mounting any additional items in the future. 
I kept the mounting very simple as well by cutting pieces off a length of 2” aluminium L bar, 
drilling two holes in each one for the mounting bolts, 
and using the very handy Super Strut M8 threaded inserts to bolt them solidly to the lengths of Super Strut. 
Quick, strong, simple; what’s not to like?!! 
I then made up the cables using extra UV rated cables, Red for the positive and Black for negative and crimping the MC4 twist lock connectors that are the most commonly used for solar panel wiring and which I’ve used a lot in previous projects so I have all the specialty tools, crimpers, etc. some of which you see here in the photo. 
To fasten the brackets to the solar panel frames themselves I inserted aluminium M6 threaded Riv-Nuts into holes I drilled into the vertical AL frame on the solar panel and then used this tool which compresses the threaded inserts and locks them to the frame. 
End result looks like this. 
For those wondering, I fastened the lengths of Super Strut to the roof using Loctite 8X PL Premium Fast Grab which is supposed to be 8 times stronger than traditional construction adhesives which I’ve used before. Probably overkill but you certainly don’t want solar panels flying off the roof when running down the highway at 70 miles an hour! To prevent any pooling of rainwater between the surfaces of the roof and the Super Strut I caulked all the edges with 3M marine sealant which I have LOTS of experience with on our previous boats. So everything fully sealed and eXtremely well fastened to the roof. 
Solar panel output drops off significantly with the rise in temperature of the panels, the irony of which isn’t lost on me, so I left this 4” gap where the two panels down each side meet up. This along with the 2+ inch space between the panels and the roof keeps them as well ventilated as possible and the efficiency of their output was very good even in the 40C/105F days we had several times on the trip AND while I was installing these panels! Talk about a cat on a hot tin roof! Ouch! 
To make it a bit easier to run the cables AND give me a wee bit of shade, I was able to remove the inner brackets and use the outer ones like a hinge and prop up one lengthwise pair of panels while I ran the cables. 
I ran the eight cables for all four solar panels to converge at this point on the front DS corner as this puts it directly overtop of the Electrical Cabinet below where they need to go and thus provides the shortest cable run for least voltage drop. I drilled the only hole in the roof for this but it was a BIG one as you can see and then I used more 3M 5200 to seal a short length of 2” PVC pipe as a safe conduit through the roof for these and all other cables in the future. The red square you see on the bottom is 3M VHB Very High Bond two sided tape which is a fabulous product for gluing almost anything to anything and it never comes off. 
PVC
Each
This is what it looked like inside the Electrical Compartment where the cables pass through. 
The output of solar panels is a much higher voltage than the batteries and needs to be regulated to different charging stages to properly charge the big LiFePO4 Lithium EG4 batteries in Lance so the output of the solar panels goes through a MPPT controller which looks after all of this. Although it isn’t common, the most efficient setup is to have a dedicated MPPT controller for each panel and so that’s how I’ve always built our solar systems. Those are the four Victron Blue boxes you see on the upper Right here. 
It’s a bit of electrical spaghetti and took a bit of time to route and connect all these cables but keeps all the wiring very well contained in the wire ducts like the one running vertically up the far Right side and will have a cap that snaps onto those fingers you see here. 
Final
The extra length of Super Strut has already come in handy for my temporary for now mounting of our Starlink dish and the 4” PVC tube running down the middle for storing long lengths of material I like to have for ongoing projects while we’re on the road. Go ahead and tell me you’re surprised?!?!
and “Sunny Boy” as he tells me he now likes to be called.
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