Kamparoo door zippers gone wonky

[alia176]

Has anyone experienced any issues with large zippers for canvas? My Kamparoo's zipper slider is not zipping properly and it feels like the very beginning end of the zipper halves is not actually in sync. There seems to be some stitching that I think was used to act as a zipper stop and I think that has failed. This is happening to the doorway that gets used the most. BUT, it is also happening to the other doorway that hardly gets used at all and I'm like ******?

Anyway, local upholstery shop says the only fix is to replace the whole zipper for mucho $$$$. They'll have to remove the canvas from the camper then put it in their sewing machines and install the new zipper. If anyone has any ideas, please speak up. This issue is not happening to the bug screen door, only the main canvas door. I'll try the zipper repairs sites to see if I can find something locally.

I'm heading to Ouray next week and it's gonna be cold and wet!

Thanks.

 

[LexusAllTerrain]

Mucho dinero it is, I just had to do a small tear repair and I had them take the whole tent out it is easy but I had no time to play so I just droped the trailer and got it done!


Looking foward to your findings!

 

[d110pickup]

When the zippers on my 1969 Cox Cadet (read "old") pop-up started giving me problems I bought new pulls from these folks and they work really well.

https://www.fixnzip.com/

It's a bit more finicky than they show on the videos but well worth a try for the small price. I've been using them for two years.

Mike

 

[alia176]

When the zippers on my 1969 Cox Cadet (read "old") pop-up started giving me problems I bought new pulls from these folks and they work really well.

https://www.fixnzip.com/

It's a bit more finicky than they show on the videos but well worth a try for the small price. I've been using them for two years.

Mike

Hey Mike,

I ordered two Large and two Middle zipper slides from the same place two days ago. I'm happy to heat that they worked out well.

 

[alia176]

Follow up: fixnzip didn't do it for my needs but I may not have the technique down. Simply squeezing the rear part of the oem slider while zipping did the trick for the entire week in Ouray.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[d110pickup]

I did say they were finicky, I also found that lubricating the zipper with a bit of Balistol helped. Tension on the thumb screw is critical, I had to play with that a bit.
But all of this is much easier than pulling the canvas off for a zipper replacement.
Mike

Follow up: fixnzip didn't do it for my needs but I may not have the technique down. Simply squeezing the rear part of the oem slider while zipping did the trick for the entire week in Ouray.

Sent from my XT1080 using Tapatalk

 

[alia176]

I did say they were finicky, I also found that lubricating the zipper with a bit of Balistol helped. Tension on the thumb screw is critical, I had to play with that a bit.
But all of this is much easier than pulling the canvas off for a zipper replacement.
Mike

Maybe I'll play with the fixnzip a bit more on the next trip out. It's a great product and easy to use, just need some patience dealing with large zippers.

 

[alia176]

*** update ***

I wanted to give everyone an update, since it has been a while! So, last weekend I bought two #10 YKK zipper sliders and had them installed by a local zipper pro. Who incidentally is into overlanding himself and just bought himself a Ford Transit van, one of them larger units that he wants to insulate, solar PV and all that fun stuff. I pointed him to this site.

Anyway, the process of replacing the zipper pulls start out at top where it is REALLY hard to access the end of the actual zipper strips. My ex GF did tell me this was the way to go and I didn't believe her; damn if she wasn't spot on. The ends of the strips are sewn into the canvas and you have to spend a lot of time finding the ends. So, the guy took a pair of dikes and cut into the tracks a little bit near the end, remove the old sliders and installed the new ones. Installing the new slider can be a royal PITA and you might want to ***** slap someone out of frustration just because you REALLY need to express your anger. Afterwards, he sewed the zipper tracks closed so that everything stays in sync and peachy keen.

So, my original sliders/pulls lasted from '02 to '15 so not bad. For $60 ($30/side installed) I now have another ten years of life. Here's what I learned from this experience:

- have patience on this project, otherwise farm it out. I think I had more fun dropping a Tcase then screwing with this project. Actually, I indulged his 420 while he did all the work.
- simply squeezing a zipper pull with pliers is NOT going to work. Here's what happens: the pulls have tiny ridges on the side that forces the zipper to come together under pressure. Over time these tiny ridges simply wear out. Unless you squeeze the absolute **** out of the pulls sideways, it ain't gonna work.
- DON'T take your kamparoo to an upholstery place. Those dumb****s want to replace the whole zipper by pulling the canvas off the trailer and stick it on their machines. Yeah, FAWK that.
- Zippers don't go bad unless you really screwed them up some how and even then, you may have a small section of unzipped but that's not a big deal, considering the alternative.
- If you MUST replace your zipper, the guy suggested loading up the bong with some good 420 and meticulously removing the old zipper using one of these https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/a6....jpeg?odnHeight=450&odnWidth=450&odnBg=FFFFFF
- reload the bong, then slowly sew on the new zipper using one of these http://www.strapworks.com/ProductDe...EKZ1kDRqrzxbDRT7lWq26WCF3vaD2C9RoCDmMQAvD_BwE
- So, you don't know how the hell to use a sewing awl? Go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6OatKzjeD0
- See I told you, it's a royal PITA project to replace the zipper of this length.

All in all, this will be couple of cases of beer and many bong refill project :ylsmoke: if you really have to replace the zipper, yeah, I didn't think so. Just replace the sliders before you REALLY muck things up. :coffeedrink: