Ron Salmon wrote:

<snip>
>I had an original Westfalia tent for a Bus, and now have a German 
>aftermarket tent for the Vanagon.  
<snip>  
>By comparison, the Westfalia tent uses a rubber moulding that must 
>be slipped onto the rain gutter, starting at the front, and then 
>slid down to the back until the entire moulding is slid onto the 
>rain gutter.  You must push it on a little at a time, and then 
>either move the bus forewards or the tent backwards and push a 
>little more of it on.  It is a much more time consuming task, and 
>is even worse if there is any rust on the rain gutter (or if there 
>is plastic trim on the rain gutter, like many Vanagons have). 
<snip>

For whoever uses a similar tent, there is an easier way to assemble it:

1) Park the van in position for the tent setup;

2) slide the tent rubber moulding (you can add a little dish washing soap to
make it really slippery) into the raingutter so that the tent hangs down the
side of the van (you neither have to move the van nor the tent frame for it,
right?);

3) sort and partially assemble the poles, crawl underneath the tent and lift
it up gradually by setting up the frame right in place;

4) even with a tent for a good sized trailer camper (and the typical bunch
of loose tent poles that you have to match up), this procedure requires a
maximum of 2 people (and I once in a while did it alone), and takes about 10
minutes. It helps if you color-(bar)code (w/ tape) the matching ends of all
tent poles.....

Hope this helps!

Marcus
'80 Vanagon Camper                          Davis, California
(916) 753 0816 (home)                       (916) 752 6409 (work)
                      mgdoherr@ucdavis.edu