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dspencer's avatar
dspencer
Explorer
Oct 21, 2013

How bad did i screw up???

Yesterday i was winterizing the Hybrid, everything was going good. Then it happened, i made a major blunder, :S as i was gently unscrewing the drain plug which i do every fall, it broke off completely. I have a 6 gal. atwood hot water heater with the plastic plug. I was being gentle or so i thought and it twisted right off.

How bad of a repair am i looking at on this? I left it out for now as usually i just leave the plug out all winter and replace it in the spring. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

24 Replies

  • Not enough information, but, sounds like your plug was plastic and you broke of the part of the plug that the wrench catches? So the threaded part of the plug is still in the tank and now there is no where to unscrew it?

    If so, just go to any Home Depot type of store and get an easy-out. The plug is plastic, so it should drill in very easy (not like a metal broken bolt). And the easy out should just continue unscrewing the broken plug.

    If this is what happened, its really easy to get that plug out, especially if the plug is plastic.

    Suggestion, when you replace it, go to Home Depot or Lowes and get a PVC version rather than the plastic one from the camper dealer store. And then... remove it often and don't tighten so much, replace every year too.
  • donn0128 wrote:
    The plug broke or the bung broke off? If its the plug, no big deal. Simply go buy a new one. If the bung is broken off the tank, then you have a major problem only cured by a new tank. As the bung is welded to the tank.


    I'm not sure what you mean by the bung! It appears only to be the plastic plug as it was just the top part of the plug. When i looked at the plug in my hand it only had about the first couple of threads on the plug. The rest of the plug is still stuck in there.
  • Pretty easy to fix!
    I have done it. I use a pipe extractor from my irrigation system. It is a 1/2 pipe easy out. Push it into opening and unscrew broken piece.Extractor
    You can pry the sides away from the tank and unscrew.
    Heat up large screwdriver and push through remaining piece and unscrew.
  • The plug broke or the bung broke off? If its the plug, no big deal. Simply go buy a new one. If the bung is broken off the tank, then you have a major problem only cured by a new tank. As the bung is welded to the tank.

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