Truck Camper Awning: How to Install a Rear Awning for Truck Camping
If you’re like us, the space at the rear of your truck camper gets used for a LOT - it’s our kitchen, dining room, and outdoor living space while truck camping.
And you need to have some way to protect this valuable real estate from the elements.
In this post we’ll walk you through a truck camper rear awning mount solution we came up with that will help make your truck camping adventures a little less claustrophobic when the weather turns south, or keep you cool when the sun’s bearing down.
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what Truck camper awning should you use?
We’d seen a variety of awnings mounted to the sides of overland vehicles, but never off the rear of a truck camper. So we began our search for the best truck camper awning for the job.
After looking a lot of brands, we found the ARB 1250x2100 awning (model# 814301)*.
At 48” wide and approximately 8ft long, it’s the perfect size for our DIY truck bed camper build. It offers enough protection to keep you out of the rain and sun when setup, while not being so wide that it would catch tree limbs on the trail when packed away.
The only downside is that ARB has not made a full room option available for this model. However, they do offer a front wind break wall* as well as side walls* to offer additional protection from the wind and elements!
We did really consider the more traditional ARB Awning 2000x2500 (model# 814201)* with Deluxe room addition (model# 813208A)*, but at 6ft wide, it was just too wide for the rear of the pickup truck camper - where we needed the awning the most!
How can you mount an awning to the rear of the truck camper?
But the question of how to mount an awning to the rear of the truck camper still persisted.
After a lot of digging we found that Fourtreks - a California based company - makes a modular awning mount that offered the perfect solution for a variety of roundbars!
With this mount you’re able to secure the ARB awning to the rear of your Yakima LoadWarrier roof rack* or other round bar.
Mounting a truck camper rear awning
The Fourtreks mounts are made of solid billet aluminum and simply clamp around the roof rack’s bar using two allen bolts.
Note that we ordered Fourtrek’s 1” modular awning mounts by mistake and we were able to make it work, but the 1.25” would have been a better fit for the LoadWarrier’s 1.25” top bar diameter on the rear. SO learn from our mistake and double check your mounting bar diameter!
Then ARB’s included mounting screws get slid into the awning, and bolted to the Fourtrek’s mounts.
Total install time was under 30 min!
The image below shows the truck camper rear awning stowed away.
And here’s the finished truck camper rear awning setup in all its glory!
We were incredibly happy with the way it turned out, and hope this guide helps you get your own truck camper rear awning setup! You can check out our walk-through showing all the components of this truck camper rear awning setup in the video below:
We’ve sense upgraded to a 270 degree 4x4 awning on our new Tacoma Overland Build after a lot of searching (and saving), so if you’re looking for alternate truck camper awning, be sure to check out our guide on How to Choose the Best Overland Awning for a full list of the best awnings for truck camping and overland travel.
And for more info on truck camping and our overland travel adventures as a family please SUBSCRIBE!
As always, thanks for reading!
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