Shade failure

geoB
geoB Member Posts: 114
in Service/Maintenance & Recall Notices
After about 11 miles of rough road the front shade has failed. The blackout shade will not stay up. When I pulled the cover off the upper right corner I saw this:

I've not seen any loose hardware in the trailer that would match the clamp as shown for the black cord in the above image. If I'm lucky the hardware has ended up trapped somewhere inside the shade's workings.

Have you experienced a similar situation and found a DIY solution?

How easy (or not) is it to remove and replace the entire shade in hopes of shaking out trapped hardware?

Is there replacement hardware available anywhere?

TIA for your insights.
2020 Toyota Highlander + 2021 T@B 400 BD 
Truckee, CA, expat, now driving out of Reno
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  • geoB
    geoB Member Posts: 114
    edited August 2022
    The good news is that the clamp can be found - it remains attached to the cord and languishes in the track somewhere. Yet to be reinstalled. But leaves me wondering how well it will be retained. At some point the corner piece will no doubt need to be replaced.

    Edit: the real bear is recovering the tension of the shades. The cords for the blackout shade keep popping off the bracket (where the cord goes from horizontal to vertical) at either end of the pullbar.
    2020 Toyota Highlander + 2021 T@B 400 BD 
    Truckee, CA, expat, now driving out of Reno
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  • geoB
    geoB Member Posts: 114
    On tensioning:

    As I read the manual, the mesh shade (upper shade) tension adjustments are made when that shade is fully up. Tension is made using the clamps (set screw in threaded insert) for the black cords in the upper corners. Similarly, blackout shade tensions are made in the lower corners with white cords. As the above image shows, the upper corner's black cord is trapped under the window mounting screw. That's true for the upper left corner, and similarly for the white cords in the lower corners.

    This seems to be contrary to the manual's instructions. Or have I misread? [Yes, I'm having a devil of a time getting the blackout shade properly tensioned. Still.]
    2020 Toyota Highlander + 2021 T@B 400 BD 
    Truckee, CA, expat, now driving out of Reno
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  • Careen
    Careen Member Posts: 2
    The cord for our black out shade is hanging loose. 8th time out in our camper , nothing egregious, just decided it didn't want to be a team player any more and has broken loose. Adding it to my list of broken stuff on our 2022 320 T@B CS Boondock
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  • geoB
    geoB Member Posts: 114
    Condolences on the loss of a team member. So far I've learned that restringing the shade is not possible for me to do while it's in place. Now that I've removed the entire shade assembly to work on it's clear that it needs to be disassembled. And that means that restringing will likely require replacing both cords because they were effectively cut short after assembly. I'm going to try to avoid ordering replacement cord (i.e., long lead times) by "extending" the existing cords with wires scavenged from unused Ethernet cable. Fingers are crossed.
    2020 Toyota Highlander + 2021 T@B 400 BD 
    Truckee, CA, expat, now driving out of Reno
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  • Passport
    Passport Member Posts: 112
    This may help, NuCamp sent it to me.
    Thank you for reaching out. Here is instructions on how to tighten the tension on the shades. 

    Blind Adjustment and Storage          
    There is a way to adjust the tension. If you look at the picture you will see a little screw that is have circled in red. Pop off the the little corner at the bottom of each side to access the the screw. There is a screw on each side of the window. Tighten the screw to adjust the tension. 
     
    This video is for re-stringing the blind: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AhhCEOni5lJpkHNp9wbjUC2fxbqR 
     
    For towing or storage we recommend having the blinds/screen open (windows uncovered). If you leave the blinds/screens closed they can start to lose their form over time.  


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