Water tank fell out.

SaltiDawg wrote:

bartlettj wrote:
I've heard tell that traveling with the tank 3/4 full is the worst case, since it's heavy and sloshing...

In Naval Architecture it is called the "Free Surface Effect." Shipboard tanks and voids have baffles installed and/or are required to be kept either full or empty.

When you see a large tanker truck going down the highway be assured it has elaborate baffle systems installed.

I am not an RVer, but I certainly can see not driving down the road unless your potable water tank is either full or empty.

Last I knew milk tankers are not allowed to be baffled.

Dusty

The fresh water tank on ours almost fell out. The front rail was ok but the back rail was too far back for some reason, so the tank was hanging by not much. I noticed the extra bulge in the underbelly, thank goodness.

The fresh water tank is made of flexible stuff for some reason to do with it being for potable water compared with the grey and black tanks with stiffer plastic. So the fresh water tank bulges down when full.

In our case, it was after warranty, so I removed the part of the underbelly there and was able to shim the back rail tighter forward using more washers on the bolts (one rail is welded, the other is bolted--in this case the back rail was the one bolted) No problem ever since. :)

The Komfort people said it was all Lippert's fault for not spacing the rails correctly on the frame they ordered for that trailer. My opinion was the Komfort people at the factory who installed the tanks must have noticed the rails were too far apart, but didn't say anything, just perched the tank there anyway. Whatever, it was after warranty. :)

bartlettj wrote:
I've heard tell that traveling with the tank 3/4 full is the worst case, since it's heavy and sloshing...

In Naval Architecture it is called the "Free Surface Effect." Shipboard tanks and voids have baffles installed and/or are required to be kept either full or empty.

When you see a large tanker truck going down the highway be assured it has elaborate baffle systems installed.

I am not an RVer, but I certainly can see not driving down the road unless your potable water tank is either full or empty.

I've heard tell that traveling with the tank 3/4 full is the worst case, since it's heavy and sloshing. A full tank doesn't slosh, and an empty tank is light. A 3/4 tank can hammer around.

I used to drive farm trucks for my uncle and one day I had to drive a flatbed with a water tank strapped to it. The tank was 3/4 full and the slosh was so bad it overcame the brakes while I was at a stopsign and pushed me out into the intersection. I quickly learned how to drive that truck very smoothly.

There are several manufactures known that they did not mount the water tanks very well.

If you need a new tank, try this website. Tank-Depot.com At least check out the site, so if the RV repair place says your tank is something like $850, you can say a replacement tank should not be that much, a tank at this site should be in the $200 - $400 range, depending on it's size.

One guy posted he had to reinforce his tank by using some angle iron and flat stock steel, under the tank.

What I did when I installed a new pair of batteries in my RV is put some unistrut under the storage compartment, with a bolt to the frame of my sidewall, and on the other side a L bracket and some all thread to keep the unistrut tight against the bottom of the storage compartment, to carry the extra 70 pounds of each battery.

Fred.