EZUP Canopy - Truss Repair

D.E.Bishop wrote:
Needless to say she was too busy and never ordered the part, after all, DOD(Dear Old Dad) McGivered it and it works great, so let's just leave it.

Sometimes the sentimental value overrides. When I was 16 years old, and in high school, I was on the JROTC drill team. I would practice at home with our 410 shotgun. One day, I dropped it and cracked the stock. At 16, my woodworking skills were non-existent. I fixed it by clamping it together, putting some finishing nails in to hold it, and wrapped it thoroughly in masking tape. DD announced one day that she wanted that shotgun. I told her fine, I will get a new stock for it. She said absolutely NOT. She only wanted it because of the cracked stock and the story behind it. (She already had a fully functional 410 of her own.)

Go to the beach. People break these every day, and maybe you can find a part from a broken one.

Update. The isn't actually and EZUP it was purchased through HOUZZ so it was an off brand. I contacted HOUZZ and several other sources with no luck. Most said the lengths and hole placements are very specific so it's not as simple as you might think.... according to them.

With that in mind I decided to try and fix what I had. The tubing for the trusses is obviously hollow. I decided to cut a piece of wood that would fit tightly inside the truss. The truss itself was actually 58 inches long. I cut the wood to be around 50 inches long. I was able to work the wood down through the truss and actually push out the dents and bends in the truss and get it back to its original shape. To finish it off I re drilled the center hole to connect the trusses and put a screw in each end to hold the wood in place. The whole process took me about an hour and I actually think it is stronger now than it was before! We will try it out this weekend but I'm confident it's going to work great!

Over our 40+ years of camping, we have had several of these tents. We have found that the actual EZUP brand will last us in excess of 7-8 years, while the off brands will usually last 2-3 years. They are expensive, but well worth the money. We usually have an off-brand that we use here and there and if someone needs to borrow one, we will loan the off-brand.