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We have recently purchased a 1990 Pennine Pullman.  We have had two weekends camping with it so far this summer, but we have a question regarding zipping up the canvas above the door. 

We cannot seem to get the door completely zipped up, the canvas goes tight and the zip will not go all the way.  This is not too much of a problem with the awning up, but we bought a FC to allow us to have weekends away without having to erect the awning. 

We have tried to re-tension the canvas around the camper to allow enough slack to get the door zipped up, but without success. 

Is this a common problem on older FCs, or are we putting the camper up wrong? 

Any advice would be very much appreciated. 

You need to zip up the doorway before the canvas is tensioned. If you open the unit out but dont extend the frame tubes you should be able to close the zip.

Then you can extend the frame to tension the canvas. You also need to fasten the velcro strips and the rubber loops under the bed units.

Generally you ensure the door panel is not under tension so it will open and close.

Experiment and dont use force or you will damage it.

We always tensioned our Pathfinder with everything closed, the internal poles were 'up' but not fully - maybe in the 3rd one down (hole that is).  Once everything was secrue from the outside we went in and closed everything up yeat again for fine-tuning.  Sounds long winded but was done quickly.  Still use the same method for awnings now.

I beleive the canvas on old pulmans shrinks as I have had a similar problem with one - no matter what I tried

Thanks for the replies.  I will try putting it up at home with the door zipped up as suggested. 

I have noticed that when erecting the camper the canvas seems to be tensioned enough with the poles pushed up into the first click only.  Maybe the canvas does shrink with age as suggested by soggymoggy.