Repairing cracked black water tank
From the day we bought good old Mabel, she's had a leaking black water tank. A PO somewhere along the line did a very poor job of repairing what I think is a crack at the valve fitting with some fibe...
Forum Discussion
Put the left rear on blocks. YES! Thanks for pointing out the obvious, popeyemth. That will be a great help in staying yuckiness free.
The best fix for thermo-molded plastics is plastic welding with internal reinforcement using stainless steel mesh. I would definitely drill the ends of a crack. My process will be to clean, bevel/drill the crack, sand surrounding area and pre-treat with abs cement. Then heat weld. If it's not ABS, then I'll skip the pre-treat and go straight to welding.
I think step 1 is to be absolutely sure what the tank is made out of. I have plenty of ABS welding rod and I can always go pick up the LDPE tubing from Home Depot. You all reminded me that I have a core I just removed from the tank when I installed the flushing kit. If I can't find casting marks on the tank, I will use some ABS cement on that core and see if it dissolves.
Thanks for the helpful hints folks.
Jose
The best fix for thermo-molded plastics is plastic welding with internal reinforcement using stainless steel mesh. I would definitely drill the ends of a crack. My process will be to clean, bevel/drill the crack, sand surrounding area and pre-treat with abs cement. Then heat weld. If it's not ABS, then I'll skip the pre-treat and go straight to welding.
I think step 1 is to be absolutely sure what the tank is made out of. I have plenty of ABS welding rod and I can always go pick up the LDPE tubing from Home Depot. You all reminded me that I have a core I just removed from the tank when I installed the flushing kit. If I can't find casting marks on the tank, I will use some ABS cement on that core and see if it dissolves.
Thanks for the helpful hints folks.
Jose
