Date:         Sun, 20 Oct 2013 12:44:52 -0800
Reply-To:     Troy <colorworks@GCI.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Troy <colorworks@GCI.NET>
Subject:      Add a room instructions?
Comments: To: ecaron1@COMCAST.NET
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252

Eric:

Somewhere I have a PDF, but let me make some suggestions and give you instructions to get you started.

I put my poles in three separate bags. This not only cuts down on weight, but makes assembly much faster.

There are four red poles that span the length of the van. Lay those out about 18 inches away and parallel to the van.

There are three poles that have angled pieces on them, I think they are the "yellow dot" poles but not positive. These have little extensions of about 6 inches or so on one end that point towards the front of the tent or away from the van door. The ridge pole is slightly different than the side pieces. Just lay those out perpendicular to the four red dot poles, and it will be obvious which one is the center ridge post.

Now, snap the red dot poles into the yellow dot poles. I think I can do this part in under 2 min., particularly if you separate your poles first.

Then you have for legs, I believe they are "brown dots", again not sure of color. These have the spikes on them, and it's pretty easy to see they are legs. They are also a two-piece telescopic design, so that's another identifying trait.

Once you have the roof top frame assembled, pull out the tent portion. There are three holes at the top of the tent, and this is where those little extensions mentioned previously, go through to form a little bit of a roof overhang. I believe the fabric is blue colored only in the front to help you identify, but just look for the holes. Slide the tent over those extensions. Pay attention to which hole is the center one, or you will end up putting a right or left in the wrong place. This part can be a little puzzling at first.

I then kind of throw the sides and front toward the center of the tent, while I attach the legs. I do not extend the legs first. Once you get these attached the tent will be about 3 1/2 feet high. The tent is going to want to fall in on itself, so this is where a helper comes in handy.

Once the tent is pulled over the corners, then you can raise the legs slowly. You can either unzip the corners of the tent (easier to put together) partially unzipped them, or leave them completely zipped up, but will probably be a little harder to assemble--all will work. The span of the legs will be determined by the zipped up tent, which will restrict its width at the bottom, so don't force the spikes of the legs into the ground until the covering is all the way on an zipped up.  You can just go around and kick the legs to make the fabric taut.

There are little ties in the corner, and you will need to secure those.

There are small little 8" or 9 inch long poles that form the rest of the roof overhang, and there is another two-piece poles that slides through a slot closest to the van door, and that goes into the gutter to form the vestibule.

There are additional poles to support the sidewalls, but they are very different looking than anything else. I put the contraption that supports the front wall in my closet, and BD has a new design out for that anyway. Not their best piece of engineering, so I never used it after setting it up once, as it was a really ridiculous setup, and just adds additional weight to the tent.

You'll probably spend most of your time staking the thing down and tying things up. I found it useful to take a black sharpie and mark the leg so that I know when they are all the same height. You're still going to have to adjust those for the terrain, but at least you have some basis to know what's level, and the correct length so that the fabric is taut.

You don't want a lot of sag between the van and the tent or water will pool. It's not too hard to kick the legs to take up some of the slack. One of the last things I do is to push the the legs into the ground for that reason.

I can probably put tent the tent up in about 7 min.. It probably takes another 10+ minutes to stake everything down, erect the vestibule, open and close windows, etc. It's one hell of a tent though!

I will look around for the instructions in PDF, but my description should get you started.

Troy