Which washers are missing? I should have spares of any you don't have but that is odd. The shavings I have seen, they don't leave them in there at the factory but rather they are inside the assembled aluminum frame. During transit and us loading/moving they get jostled around enough for the shavings to work their way out of the mounting holes, obviously nothing a quick vacuum can't fix but I'm going to suggest to them that they put some pieces of tape over the holes that way you don't pull them off until your ready to mount it to the aluminum extrusions.
o biggie, I knew you'd take care of me if needed. Fortunately I have plenty of spare washers and bolts in my parts bin (although they're not numbered and indexed
). It was missing the fender washers that go around the bolt head inside the tent, that mount the tent to the track/rack. It came with normal washers that were about the same diameter as the bolt head, but the diagram shows fender washers to distribute the force better. I ended up using about 1" fender washers, I hope that's sufficient. If not, I'll get something wider.
Also, the "self-tapping" metal screws that connect the rack to the frame ended up stripping the head of the screws. They struggled to penetrate the frame anyway, and didn't self-tap very well. Keep in mind who the installer is, not everyone will have these issues.
So I just ended up drilling the holes out and using 4 of the load bar rack mounting bolts. Sure, it's overkill, but it beats rivets or stripped self-tappers.
No biggie, I just thought I'd let others know in case they get to the same point with their install. I pulled the sleeping pad out so I can vacuum all the aluminum shavings out (99% of them were caused by me drilling out the self-tap holes). Other than that it's going together well. I really dig the mounting brackets. I remember seeing some anti-theft brackets/nuts on the "Is a RTT for me" article, I need to go back and research the best way to keep it from being stolen.
