Ezy-Awning Meets the Promaster

We opted for the 8x11 foot awning for full coverage

From the first time we took the Buster-mobile on our first outing, we have wanted to add a canopy.  We cobbled one together from an old sail and old dining fly poles, and it worked OK, but not great.

Most of the canopies/awnings we looked at didn't appeal to us for these reasons:

1.  They were too expensive.  $1000 or more just for a little rain protection or shade seemed looney to us.

2.  They needed to be permanently mounted to the roof of the Van which meant putting holes in perfectly good sheet metal, AND making us too tall for the cheap seats on the ferry.

3.  If they weren't permanently installed, they took up WAY too much space to haul around, were heavy, and involved an engineering degree to deploy them.

Ezy-Awning bags

Then we found Ezy-Awning from the Bus Depot.  It met all our needs.  It was cheap, at $119 plus shipping. When not in use, the awning fit in to two bags about the size of those fold-up camp chairs.  When in use it has shock-corded tent poles holding up the roof, so it sheds water like a champ.

This video shows an Ezy-Awning being set up on a VW Westie.  She actually labors it longer than need be, mainly because she's trying to make it all clear to the viewer.  From the decision to set it up, til we say, "there, that'll work", takes us about 10 minutes.  Same with taking it down.

homemade bracket to adapt Ezy-Awning to the Promaster

The Esy Awning is made for VW vans that have rain gutters.  It comes with three clamps that clamp the side toward the van to the rain gutter.  Unfortunately the Promaster doesn't have rain gutters, so we need to come up with plan B.  Howard used the Ezy-Awning clamps and bolted three adapters that he machined from C-channel aluminum.

Their are three mounting pegs on the roof of the Promaster, presumably for roof racks.  Howard's key-hole slotted brackets drop over the pegs, and slide about an inch toward the rear of the van to lock in place, and make a very sturdy connection.

So in a nutshell, here's what we like about the Ezy Awning:
1.  Cheap
2.  Easy to set up
3  Drains well with not puddles.  The back edge drips into the channel on the  van roof.
4.  Only two poles makes for a very useable space.
5.  Tie downs and the shock-corded support poles make the awning very wind resistant.
6.  It's light weight.
7.  No storage problems either when we are hauling it around with us, or when we store it between camping trips.

Taking the Buster the Promaster on the Road

After all the theorizing about how the camper van would work on the road, we loaded the Buster-mobile and hit the road.--1800 miles in almost 3 weeks, in two countries, through four mountain ranges, onto eight ferries, two major highways, many country roads, and several logging roads.  As a vehicle the Promaster handled extremely well, and was very comfortable for both driver and passenger.  We must have said about a thousand times, "I really like this vehicle."

As a camper, we LOVED it.  It worked very well for us.  Our stuff fit, we slept like logs, had a comfortable space to sit and eat, write, draw, and read.  We enjoyed the convenience of our galley, storage space, and porta-potty.  Our water system was adequate because we were always in places where we could replenish our supply.  In the future, if we camp in a more remote location without access to potable water for more than a couple days, we'd need to take another 5-gallon jug with us, but mostly that's not the kind of camping we have in mind.

the seat cushion now divided into 2 sections

We did decided to make a few tweeks to our lay-out.  First of all, both our bench seats that  convert to the bed had one long seat cushion each.  We decided to split the lids to the benches in two, and also split the cushions into two sections.  This made it possible to access either the left or right storage space under the bench without as much effort.  I thought about doing this originally, but was afraid the cushions would shift too much when we were sleeping on them.  We tested the new cushion configuration on a recent 5-day venture to the Washington Coast, and found they stayed in place just fine.   The bench lids are covered with felting that is used in automobile trunks.  The friction keeps everything in place.

Note the seatbelt holding the fridge in place.

The only other change was to shift the position of the Norcold chest refrigerator.  Instead of being next to the passenger-side bench seat on the left side of the sliding side door, it is now behind the passenger seat, and belted in with a repurposed seat belt.  By the way, we really like the chest-style fridge.  Having used small upright refrigerators in the past, this one worked much better--it could be packed tight, nothing falls out when you open the door. , and it worked very efficiently on the 12-volt system.

We also decided we want an awning, and not the cobbled-together thing we made out of an old sail shortly before we left, but a real awning.  We think we've hit on the perfect solution, and will write about that in the next post.


One of the things that attracted us to the Promaster in the first place was the efficient Dodge V-6 engine and it's highway mileage rating of 24 miles to the gallon.  We had Buster pretty loaded on this trip, and traveled very few miles on anything approximating a highway.  Even so, we got 20 miles to the gallon, so we were happy.