Hi Tom n N,
My first real trip out in my 2016 Fleet I parked with the back of my camper looking out over a beautiful canyon in Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. A huge windstorm came up, and I of course forgot the part of the rapid-fire camper orientation I had received the week before when my dealer told me "DON'T pull on the strap thingy! Use the knob to pull on the back lower lift panel." Needless to say, the strap thingy popped right off (gotta say, I wasn't on there very solid!!!), and it was a lot of fun having my wife hold the back lift panel in place in 60 MPH gusts while I found a screw and jury-rigged a way to fix the strap thingy in place. Didn't sleep too well during the gale that night wondering if the roof was going to come crashing down, but it gave me time to meditate on my discomfort on the mechanics / design of the strap thingy.
Long story short, I replaced my strap thingy with a wooden dowel. I got a wooden dowel, 2 big ring terminal wire electrical connectors, 1 bolt, 1 nut, 1 lock washer. I measured and cut the dowel, whittled its ends a little bit, installed the ring terminals on either end, put the bolt in the hole of one of the ring terminals. To state the obvious, measuring everything is crucial, and one has to gently bend the rings of the ring terminals to get the right angles.
When I push the rear of the roof up the bolt on one end of my dowel prop drops into the hole that the barrel bolt goes into on the rear lower lift panel, and the open ring terminal on other end of the dowel accepts the bolt of the barrel bolt on the roof. When the wind comes up I sleep a lot better at night knowing there is a dowel propping the rear lift panel out instead of the strap thingy preventing it from collapsing. An added benefit is that the dowel prop makes a dandy towel rack. I store the prop in the long side rack on the right side of my Fleet, where I keep my bungee cords.
One thing I learned (the hard way, of course) is that I must remove my dowel prop before I lower the front of the roof! Duh. Fortunately when I learned this leason my dowel flexed and didn't break.
Sorry I couldn't post pictures of this at present, but if people feel this would be useful I'll try to put some up down the road.