Vanagon – cleaning the Shadyboy awning

After about 5 years of use my Shadyboy awning was looking a bit dirty. I contacted Wolfgang at Shadyboy and he confirmed that the material can be cleaned with soap and water. Here are some pics I took, padding the post a bit, but maybe someone would be interested in how the awning looks non-deployed.

Some of the dirt must come from keeping the guy line stakes in here.

Unrolled, you can see it is a bit manky.

There are silicone plugs at each end of the grooved aluminium extrusion that the inboard seam awing slides into. The seam has a flexible rod sewn into the hem. The plugs can be pried out with a flat bladed screwdriver, just need to do one end.

With the plug removed, the hem slides right out. Notice the gap between the aluminium block with the hole drilled in it and the case? Seemed like the case might have been bent away from the block, I used a little C-clamp to draw the case back closer to the block.

I hand washed the awning using warm water and a very little bit of laundry detergent. I rinsed it well, and I noticed the water beads up and slides off the material just like it used to. Then the material was fed back into the groove and the silicone plug installed. Before and after shots.