I made a stupid mistake last night and I thought I would share it in the hopes that someone else might avoid making the same one. I also though I might get some feedback on how to proceed. Maybe some of you can share your own embarrassing RV stories so I don't feel like I'm quite as inept .

We are leaving Friday morning for a 3 day camping trip, so to help my wife pack while I'm at work today I decided to move our trailer from it's normal parking spot out in our back field to out in the driveway in front of our house. The spot where it is parked isn't level so I have the wheels on one side up on paver stones and a couple of boards. It was after dark and I was working alone so hitched up and started to pull forward when I hear a loud cracking sound. I jumped out and the boards I was parked on had snapped when I rolled off the paver stones. I didn't care as they were scrap lumber and jumped back in a proceeded to pull out.

When I cleared the parking area I jumped out to check everything and that's when I noticed my waste water manifold was turned 90 degrees and sticking out from the trailer. One of the boards had caught it and ripped the outlet off the grey water tank, and ripped the black water valve assembly in half leaving just the blade valve intact enough to avoid leaking. The board also broke the box covering the shower p-trap and ripped a hole in the sheet metal covering the floor under the bathroom cabinet.

I'm not too worried about the destroyed valves as they are fairly inexpensive, as is the ABS pipe. What I am concerned with though is my grey water outlet. I'm hoping I can repair it with marine epoxy and some fiberglass tape. Just wondering what some of you may think about repairing vs. close to $200 to replace it. Keep in mind that this is an older trailer that we plan on replacing in 2 years, so I don't want to put too much money into it.

We are still camping this weekend, but will be using pit toilets and a camp sink instead. I guess it's still better than tent camping with 2 little ones.

 

You broke the outlet completely off the tank where the abs slides in before heading to the dump valve?

 

Correct, the rest of the outlet is still clamped to the 1.5" PVC which is now laying on the ground. Not sure if I'll be able to epoxy it back on with the way it broke and the brittleness of the almost 40 year old plastic. The plus is that I found Amazon sells tanks and the prices are pretty good. Anywhere from $80-$150 depending on the size. Just have to measure the old tank. I have no idea how to get under there to unhook the inlets though. The bathroom floor and some of the rear wall need replaced anyway (water damage), so maybe I should do it all at once. Maybe include the black tank while I'm at it if the budget allows. The bathroom has a brand new toilet, shower, and linoleum, so I don't know why they didn't' replace the floor while they were at it...I would have.

 

I really think you will be better off retanking rather than attempting a repair. I think a successful repair would be iffy. You do not have to have the exact size replacement tank as long as it is large enough to run below the vent stack and drain/drains that come in from above and you can mount it.

I can probably talk you through the replacement if that is something you want to attempt. The drains and vents will either pull out of a rubber slip ring or else they are glued to a female fitting on the top of the tank. Really just all in a good day's fun!

 

Thanks for your input, even from my short time on the towing forum I know from reading your posts here that you definitely know what you are talking about!!

I'm sure it will be fun though, especially since it will most likely be over 100 here for the next 2 months. We are supposed to be 108 today and tomorrow and 110 on Saturday. Thus the reason for running away into the mountains on the weekend. Now if I could just do the repair at the campsite where it will in the low 80s instead.

I'll follow up on this thread though when I figure out what I'm going to do.

 

I spent my morning here at the track as the drag racers are in town. First request for service was at 6:30 this morning. I can't even find my truck at that time of day.

Not in the 100s here, but very darn hot!

 

Sorry for your, do you call it luck?

Hopefully you find an easy fix. It's always bothered my how cheaply built modern RVs are.

 

This one was well built IMO when it was new in 1977, but almost 40 years of desert heat, incompetent owners making cheesy repairs, and a leaky roof will make any RV fall apart. But I know what you mean. A friend of mine had a brand new 35' TT and then 30' Class A and they both had multiple things go wrong on the very first trip. (Slides, dead generator, etc...at least the E-350 V10 chassis was reliable!)

Back on the cheesy repairs. My freshwater fill port has been leaking so while I was draining the sanitizing bleach solution out I decided to pull it out and see if the fill hose needed replaced or a clamp tightened. One of the previous owners made the hose too short by 1 or 2 inches so they cut the bottom of prescription bottle off and used it as an extension. You just can't make this stuff up. I can understand doing something like that on the fly in the middle of a trip...but fix it correctly when you get home. I wish this was the only cheesy repair I've seen so far.

 

For a temp solution get a bumper dumper

 

Yeah, I bet my wife would like that one! LOL

 

Oh I'm showing that to my kids. If you don't behave you'll have to use one of these lol. Ahhh the fear I shall see lol

 

Not fun in the sun..But I think you will be much happier in the end doing a complete replacement and making it right.


Any chance that you can gather parts and then start in when the weather cools a bit?

 

Back from our trip and we were able to talk about our plans for it. We are going to tent camp for the remainder of the summer and I'm going to gut the rear of the trailer. Replace the floor and framing in the back and while the floor is torn up we are going to replace both of the waste tanks. Hopefully it will be ready again by late fall when we will want it again to camp in cold weather.

The campground we stayed in had flush toilets and our site wasn't too far of a walk. I put a bucket under the broken outlet and used it to catch the grey water from doing dishes, it worked. We definitely used a lot less water since that little bucket filled up quickly!

 

Kind of disappointed. I was hoping for a review on that commode seat hung off the hitch on the back of the truck.

Steve

 

I know what my wife would think of it - and it ain't printable!