Adding a 270° Awning to My Mitsubishi Delica L300
Twenty seconds. Seriously.
Unzip the cover. Undo the straps. Swing the awning around the Five Billion Star Hotel. Secure the end.
That's about it.
In roughly 20 seconds, my Mitsubishi Delica L300 goes from a van parked in the woods to having a rather substantial covered outdoor living space.
And after living with my OPENROAD 270° Freestanding Awning for a while now, I can finally say something I've deliberately waited to say:
I love this thing.
The OPENROAD 270° Adventure Series awning deployed on the passenger side of the Five Billion Star Hotel, providing coverage around both the sliding door and rear hatch.
First, A Little Transparency
I've been using the OPENROAD 270° Freestanding Awning, Adventure Series on my Mitsubishi Delica L300 for a while now... OPENROAD provided it to me at no cost with the understanding that I would photograph it and share my experience as I naturally used it. They didn't tell me what to say.
There's also a reason you're just now reading this.
I wanted to live with the awning for a while before writing about it. I wanted to deploy it. Pack it away. Camp beneath it. Use it in the desert. Use it in the rain. Use it in a little wind. Figure out what I liked, what I didn't, and learn its quirks.
I'm not one to pull something out of a box and immediately declare it the greatest thing since sliced bread.
I've lived with this one for a while now.
Yeah. I love this thing.
Packed away and ready to travel. The OPENROAD 270° awning rides along the passenger side of the Five Billion Star Hotel's roof rack.
Why A 270° Awning?
I knew I wanted an awning on the Five Billion Star Hotel, but I wanted something that could be deployed and packed away quickly. While searching around, I kept coming back to the 270° designs.
I liked the idea of having the option to use an awning with or without legs. I liked having a substantial amount of coverage. I also liked knowing I could add walls later if I decided I wanted them.
Then there was the 270° part.
I'm very glad I didn't go with a 180° awning.
The OPENROAD wraps around the passenger side and rear of the Delica, covering the area around my sliding door while also creating shelter around the back of the van. In practice, it doesn't feel like I've attached a little strip of shade to the side of the FBSH. It feels like I've added another room.
Or maybe a front porch.
Why The Passenger Side?
The Five Billion Star Hotel is right-hand drive, which puts my passenger side and sliding door on the left.
That's where I wanted the awning.
There was a practical reason. The sliding door is the main entrance into the living area, so covering it made sense.
But I also had a particular image in my head.
Rain.
The slider open.
Me stretched out inside the Delica, listening to the pitter-patter of rain hitting the awning overhead.
Sometimes modifications are about ground clearance, recovery gear and getting farther down some questionable dirt road.
Sometimes I just want a really good nap.
Of Course I Couldn't Install It Normally
I mounted the supplied L-brackets upside down to raise the awning and gain the clearance needed to fully open the Delica's rear hatch.
OPENROAD supplies L-brackets for mounting the awning.
Naturally, I installed mine upside down.
There was a reason.
I wanted additional clearance between the awning and the Five Billion Star Hotel. In particular, I needed to be able to fully open my rear hatch while the awning was deployed.
Mounted to that hatch is a rather delicate mirror.
The last thing I wanted was to swing the hatch open and...
CRACK!
...learn an expensive lesson about clearances.
Flipping the L-brackets gave me the additional height I needed. The rear hatch can fully open underneath the deployed awning, and my mirror gets to continue being a mirror.
This is why I mounted the awning higher than normal. The extra clearance allows the Delica's rear hatch to fully open beneath the deployed awning.
Installing A 270° Awning By Myself
The biggest hurdle wasn't figuring out how to mount the awning. It was physically getting it up there.
I've had a few surgeries that have significantly affected my core strength and ability to lift, so wrestling a large awning onto the roof rack by myself wasn't exactly ideal.
But I had a plan.
I temporarily positioned the mounting brackets first. Then I lifted one end of the awning and temporarily attached it to one of the end brackets.
Now the rack was carrying one end instead of me.
With that end supported, I slipped the remaining mounting slides into place. I lifted the opposite end, guided its bolt into the bracket, and let gravity do me a favor by holding everything in position until I could get up there and secure it.
From there, I temporarily attached the center mounting point, adjusted the position of the entire awning, and snugged everything down.
Done.
Would another set of hands have made life easier?
Absolutely.
Did I manage it alone?
Yep.
I mounted the awning high on the passenger side of the Delica's roof rack to provide the clearance I wanted around the vehicle.
Twenty Seconds. Seriously.
This might be my favorite part.
Setting it up is almost comically easy.
Unzip the cover. Release the straps. Swing the awning around the van. Secure the end.
That's it.
I barely use the legs.
The awning is surprisingly sturdy on its own in a small amount of wind. If conditions warrant it, though, the legs are right there. OPENROAD also includes tie-downs, so I can secure the awning when needed.
If I'm going to walk away from camp, I'll deploy the legs and tie it down regardless of what the weather is doing.
Colorado wind has a sense of humor.
OPENROAD publishes specific wind guidance for freestanding and supported use, so I'd rather secure it than return from a hike or photography excursion to discover that my awning has begun its own overlanding adventure.
I Created One Little Problem
Remember how I intentionally mounted the awning higher?
There was a tradeoff.
It's now above my reach.
Packing the awning away is still pretty easy, but I've turned it into a miniature tour of the exterior of the Delica.
I climb the driver's-side ladder to release one strap. I stand on the rear passenger-side tire to reach the straps and zipper at the back. Then I stand on the front passenger-side tire to deal with the front straps and zipper.
A little step ladder would probably make a lot of sense.
Apparently, I'd rather climb around on the Five Billion Star Hotel.
The extra height also means that occasionally the awning's integrated legs don't quite reach the ground. I've stacked a couple of rocks underneath them when necessary.
I have an idea for making leg extensions.
That's a project for another day.
If it works, I'll come back and add it here.
Rain? Bring It.
I've had the awning out in the rain, and this is one of those situations where learning how the equipment behaves matters.
Water can pool on a large piece of fabric.
The solution has been simple. Using the attachment points and pulling a tie-down tight changes the geometry enough to create a path for the water to drain rather than collect.
And once again, I'm back to the reason I wanted the awning over the sliding door in the first place.
Open door.
Rain falling.
Dry Delica.
Pitter-patter.
Mission accomplished.
The OPENROAD 270° awning at camp after dark. The integrated LED lighting turns the area around the Delica into a genuinely usable campsite.
And Then The Sun Goes Down
This is another feature I wasn't sure how much I'd use until I actually started camping with it.
The Adventure Series has integrated lighting with three colors: warm white, cool white and amber. Each light has a button. Tap it to cycle through the colors. Hold it to dim the lights.
Simple.
More importantly, useful.
This isn't a feature that sounded neat on a product page and then never got used.
I use the lights every single time I have the awning deployed as darkness approaches.
OPENROAD supplied the USB-A power connection, which plugs directly into the Delica's house-power system. I'll show that connection in one of the photos here because it's an incredibly simple arrangement.
The OPENROAD awning's lighting plugs into a USB-A port already integrated into the Five Billion Star Hotel's house-power system.
My house-power controls sit just inside the passenger-side sliding door, conveniently located beneath the awning and within easy reach of its USB-A power lead.
The Adventure Series has integrated warm white, cool white and amber LED lighting. Tap the button to change colors and hold it to dim the lights.
It Became The Front Porch
This is probably the part I didn't anticipate.
I originally thought about the awning as shelter.
Shade in the desert.
Cover from rain.
A place to sit outside when the Delica itself gets a little warm.
It became more than that.
On one of my week-long photography adventures, my nephew came along. We camped outside the Grand Canyon, pulled the chairs out beneath the awning, turned on the lights and sat there talking.
I've done the same with friends.
I've even done it with complete strangers.
The Five Billion Star Hotel tends to attract attention. Someone walks over. They ask what it is. I give them a tour. Before long, chairs come out and we're sitting beneath the awning talking.
It really has become the FBSH's front porch.
My nephew and I relaxing beneath the OPENROAD awning during a photography trip near the Grand Canyon. The integrated lighting gets used nearly every night the awning is deployed.
Nothing Is Free... Even When It Was Free
There are compromises.
My unusual mounting height created the reach problems I mentioned earlier. That's on me, not OPENROAD.
The awning also makes access to one of my rooftop cases more difficult. The passenger-side case sits beneath one of my solar panels and contains spare parts. I knew the awning would impede access before I installed it and decided that was an acceptable trade.
Hopefully, if I'm opening the spare-parts case on the side of some road, reaching the case will be the least of my concerns.
The driver's side remains easier to access and holds camping and towing equipment.
There's only so much real estate on the roof of a Delica. Between solar panels, a spare tire, cases, recovery equipment and an enormous awning, eventually something has to inconvenience something else.
From above, the 270° coverage becomes obvious. The awning wraps around the passenger side and rear of the Five Billion Star Hotel while sharing roof-rack space with the solar panels, spare tire and storage.
Would I Do It Again?
Yep.
Same awning.
Same side.
I'd even mount it high again.
That doesn't mean I won't continue tinkering with it. I've seen a quick-disconnect mounting system that could potentially go between my roof rack and the awning and make removing or reinstalling the entire assembly considerably easier. I'm intrigued.
And I still have that idea for extending the legs to compensate for my elevated mounting position.
Because apparently no modification to the Five Billion Star Hotel is ever truly finished.
But neither of those things changes what I think of the awning itself.
I appreciate how this thing was designed and put together. That's something I tend to pay attention to. My education is in mechanical engineering, and before that I turned wrenches professionally and have continued doing so as a hobby. There are products that make me wonder what the engineer was thinking.
This isn't one of them.
The OPENROAD Adventure Series 270° awning, packed away and ready for the next campsite.
Thanks, OPENROAD
So, a genuine thank-you to OPENROAD for sending the Adventure Series 270° Awning my way and giving me the opportunity to put it to use on the Five Billion Star Hotel.
You can also find them on Instagram at @openroad_4wd.
They provided the awning.
They didn't provide my opinion.
I deliberately waited until I'd lived with it, camped with it, deployed it repeatedly, packed it away repeatedly, used it for shade, sat beneath it in the rain and spent evenings under its lights before writing this.
So, after all of that?
I love this thing.
And yes...
Twenty seconds. Seriously.
