Well, after yesterday I should probably stop talking and start working. Man - doesn't take much to get me going huh?
The sink. Let's work on the sink. I guess part of this could go under "Waste Water", but maybe I'll do that from the trap downstream. For now, I guess we're still in the galley.
Back when I was ignorant, or maybe more correctly stated, back when I was more ignorant than I am today, I disassembled the camper. The under sink plumbing was a cemented together contraption of ABS (black) plastic in 2". It was huge! And all it did was trap, vent and drain out the bottom of the wing! All glued together in one piece. I loosened the plastic nuts from the bottom of the sink and disposed of the whole thing, except the exterior side vent cover. I saved that.
So now I had the sink flanges without nuts. But the under nut washer things that ride against the rubber bottom seals were still stuck on pretty good. Almost satisfactory ;)
I loosened them with large jaw water pump pliers (some call these channel locks).
A little surface rust. Not bad. Even the rubber is quite flexible and shows no sign of deterioration. Anybody who has messed with rubber products over the years knows yesterday's rubber is a much better compound than today's, and for the last however long. I scraped the slight rust and scale from the rubber with the back side of an exacto knife and I was so impressed with the rubber quality that I'll re-use it without ANY worries.
And in reality, all it's doing is compressing enough to apply pressure on the actual seal, which is plumber's putty on the other side of the sink.
Here are the pieces cleaned up with wire wheel, solvent and a little bit of hand tool work.
The factory didn't use plumber's putty. They used the same thing that was applied to all the exterior seals, like the windows and sheet metal over-lap. Does anybody know if they still make this stuff? It is extremely sticky! Greenish.
Here's the RV sink flange compared to a residential style I had on hand. Notice the residential style's smaller threads for the tailpiece is 1.5". That's the same size as the entire threaded portion of the RV style. But a tailpiece nut is different than is a flange retainer nut.
I ran down to the RV parts store to see if they had new retainer nuts. They only sold them in the entire flange kit.
I wasn't going to dispose of my stainless steel flange in favor of the plastic, so I set those aside. I questioned the value of using the foam ring over the rubber. I chose the rubber. Notice the ridges on the back of the nut? I think it sealed fine upon assembly. But the original was probably a flat surface against the rubber. I guess I'll see how that all pans out.
Then roll a rope of putty.
Press evenly around the flange.
And press firmly into the sink.
Back on the underside, install the rubber ring and the new retainer nut.
Tighten reasonably. Don't distort the rubber. Excess flow is normal. Remove it with a screwdriver tip. It may seep for a day or so.
I also picked up a crossover kit from the RV store. As opposed to the residential style little plastic washers that ticki2 mentioned he's had trouble with, this kit uses rubber washers. When tightened, they probably have more retention strength and I'm hoping they'll stay tight because of their specific RV design. I wasn't real interested in trying to glue together another entire assembly.
As mentioned before, with the sink drain so close to the top drawer, I used some extra counter spacers to shift the sink further from the stove. I tried a three inch, a two inch, and finally settled on a one inch additional space away from the stove. Notice that board here.
That positioned the left underside like this.
And the right side like this.
And still gave a pleasing visual positioning relative to the counter and cabinet openings.
Then I got busy on the top drawer. Let's do that tomorrow.
