1968 Travel Queen Resto Mod - 12. Waste Water
Part 12. Waste Water is pretty much self-explanatory. Is it black? Is it grey? And how is it done in this vintage resto-mod so that advantage is gained in such a limited space? These are issues both p...
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Recent work on Lil' Queeny has had me finishing the cab-over step up cabinet; the storage location for the fresh water tank. But this area also houses the systems that connect camper left side to right side and one of those was the drain waste vent (DWV) from the kitchen on port side to the grey tank on starboard.
The waste system was complete - but had not yet been smoke tested (that's a mechanic's term for starting a freshly built engine). Time to check for leaks.
I took a last look at all connections and filled the tank from the kitchen and bathroom sinks. There were some minor leaks.
With all the various connections, mostly in the form of Fernco rubber connectors with worm gear clamps, I expected more problems that I found. I was delighted!
The biggest threat I felt were the plastic fittings threaded into the tank itself. You may recall I used a pipe dope on these as I had never really been successful with Teflon tape hard plastic to soft. Of these tank connections, they all held except right at the dump valve.
The only other leaks were the grey colored Fernco adapters where they clamped on the thin walled plastic trap areas, one leak at the bath sink, and two or three at the shower drain.
This is the bath sink drain with the plastic pipe stub removed.
I cut a new stub pipe from a metal downstream trap piece. Here are old and new parts.
Here's the new piece in place.
No leak, all fixed.
Here's the leak at the shower.
Both the clamp on the tailpiece, and the downstream piece of the trap were leaking or questionable, so I replaced both with metal, cut to size and polished on the edges.
The threaded dump valve leak was another matter. First thing was to remove the original battery tray (acting as a hold down for the grey tank) and lift the tank about half an inch at it's rear to allow the screw in dump valve flange to turn; that's of course after dismantling the dump valve pieces.
Next I tried several wraps of Teflon tape after cleaning off the old pipe dope. After a retest, the Teflon joint leaked even worst than the pipe doped joint. DS had said I should use Silicon, and maybe I should, but I was still holding off on that. One more try was a different pipe dope.
While in Fairbanks, an RV Tech turned me on to this...
Specifically to lube and seal the water heater drain/anode rod threads. It has worked very well on that metal thread scenario and I grabbed it to try on this softer plastic joint.
After reading the label and verifying it was a suitable stuff for this application, I put it back together and it was a great fix. Screwed in smoothly and felt good, no sense of "too loose" while still needing tightening. Felt right and it sealed.
And this time I fastened the "battery tray" a little higher so it no longer holds down the grey tank or has to be removed to raise the back of the tank. That allows me to leave it alone in future unless I'm removing the tank. And it's not where the batteries are to be located now anyway, but will contain a number of wires, cables and components I don't want disturbed just to fix a tank joint leak. I'll add a simple hold-down at the tank rear somewhere.
So the grey tank and waste water system is ready, complete and smoke tested!
The waste system was complete - but had not yet been smoke tested (that's a mechanic's term for starting a freshly built engine). Time to check for leaks.
I took a last look at all connections and filled the tank from the kitchen and bathroom sinks. There were some minor leaks.
With all the various connections, mostly in the form of Fernco rubber connectors with worm gear clamps, I expected more problems that I found. I was delighted!
The biggest threat I felt were the plastic fittings threaded into the tank itself. You may recall I used a pipe dope on these as I had never really been successful with Teflon tape hard plastic to soft. Of these tank connections, they all held except right at the dump valve.
The only other leaks were the grey colored Fernco adapters where they clamped on the thin walled plastic trap areas, one leak at the bath sink, and two or three at the shower drain.
This is the bath sink drain with the plastic pipe stub removed.
I cut a new stub pipe from a metal downstream trap piece. Here are old and new parts.
Here's the new piece in place.
No leak, all fixed.
Here's the leak at the shower.
Both the clamp on the tailpiece, and the downstream piece of the trap were leaking or questionable, so I replaced both with metal, cut to size and polished on the edges.
The threaded dump valve leak was another matter. First thing was to remove the original battery tray (acting as a hold down for the grey tank) and lift the tank about half an inch at it's rear to allow the screw in dump valve flange to turn; that's of course after dismantling the dump valve pieces.
Next I tried several wraps of Teflon tape after cleaning off the old pipe dope. After a retest, the Teflon joint leaked even worst than the pipe doped joint. DS had said I should use Silicon, and maybe I should, but I was still holding off on that. One more try was a different pipe dope.
While in Fairbanks, an RV Tech turned me on to this...
Specifically to lube and seal the water heater drain/anode rod threads. It has worked very well on that metal thread scenario and I grabbed it to try on this softer plastic joint.
After reading the label and verifying it was a suitable stuff for this application, I put it back together and it was a great fix. Screwed in smoothly and felt good, no sense of "too loose" while still needing tightening. Felt right and it sealed.
And this time I fastened the "battery tray" a little higher so it no longer holds down the grey tank or has to be removed to raise the back of the tank. That allows me to leave it alone in future unless I'm removing the tank. And it's not where the batteries are to be located now anyway, but will contain a number of wires, cables and components I don't want disturbed just to fix a tank joint leak. I'll add a simple hold-down at the tank rear somewhere.
So the grey tank and waste water system is ready, complete and smoke tested!
