Single Black & Gray Water Drain Setup

Pop-T@B

I have not had a chance to post this until now, a few people saw this while I was at Tearstock this year. I did have the guys for PV look at it and sent pictures to Marvin. Lets hope this is something they can incorporate into the new 2017 "S" model. I know this has been done before and done well, I was just looking for a way to raise the gray water drain line to get more clearance. Before I started the bottom of my gray water drain was 6" off the ground with the trailer setting level in my garage, by doing it like this I was able to gain 1-1/4" of clearance. Now the low point is 7-1/4" off the ground and now has a single drain outlet. Take a look and let me know what you guys think.

WildRumpus

Love it! It sure would make it more convenient when you're using full hook ups. It's kind of a pain to switch the hose back and forth from grey to black. The added clearance is a welcome bonus!

Mr_Mrs_Gnome

@Pop-T@B, I'll bring mine right over. Very cool! So you installed a Y fitting onto the black and stubbed the gray into the open part of the Y?

ericnliz

Pop-T@B, looks really good [as do all your inventive solutions], sure would make it easier as WidRumpus stated less to hook-up and un-hook! Great solution!

MrAmazon

Awesome!  I've been looking for a solution to get a bit more clearance & easier access.  Can you share what parts you used & where you bought them from.  Or just give me your address & a good time for me to drop it off for you to do mine.  Great work man!

Tabaz

Can't wait for the weather to cool down enough to do this mod.  Another great idea from Pop-T@B!  My only change will be to have the gray water drain handle point forward because of the Outback platform being in the way.

Pop-T@B

It is a long post as usual, but here it is. I would only recommend doing this if you have good understanding of plumbing, it is not real hard, but it helps if you know plumbing.

     I ordered these parts from www.rveparts.com    1- T1006-1 RV sewer- fit valve spigot 11/2” 1- T1041-1 RV sewer- Holding tank offset reducer 11/2” 1-T1029-1 RV sewer- Termination adapter 3” Spig. The parts listed below I picked up at the local big box lumber yard 1- 11/2” ABS 60® elbow 1-11/2" ABS 22.5 ® degree elbow 1- long sweep sanitary 3” tee 1- 11/2” rubber coupling with hose clamps 4’ of 11/2” ABS pipe ABS glue and primer Here is how I started If you look at the 3” hose adaptor LG uses for the drain connection it has the 11/2” pipe going into the center of the 3” reducing hub bushing and this rests against the frame of the trailer making the fitting hang down, now look at the 11/2” drain pipe as it comes out of the gray water tank and you will see they used a T1041-1 offset reducer. To start, drain your gray water tank, take off the pipe strap holding the drain pipe, then cut the 11/2” drain pipe coming out of the gray water tank about half way back. Take apart the 11/2” drain valve and remove the old 3” slinky hose side. Take the new seals if you have them, put it on the new T1006-1 fitting and bolt the valve back together. You now should have the 11/2” gray water valve with a new fitting on one side and the 11/2” pipe on the other side.             Now on the black water drain fitting, you will need to grind or file off the 4 little nubs that the slinking hose locking ring fits onto, this will allow you to slip the long sweep sanitary 3” tee onto the black water drain pipe. Dry fit everything first, do not glue or prime anything until you are happy with the fitment. Slip the long sweep sanitary 3” tee onto the black water pipe and angle the drain end down slightly, Insert the T1041-1 RV sewer- Holding tank offset reducer into the back of the long sweep sanitary 3” tee. You will align the offset reducer so the 11/2” fitting is on the bottom side of the tee and the bulk of the 3” fitting is on the top, just like it is coming out of the gray water tank. Take the gray water valve and Insert the side with the new T1006-1 fitting into the T1041-1 offset reducer, position the gray water valve so the gray water valve handle clears the frame rail when you open and close it. On my T@B I had to face the valve facing the rear due to the angle of the black water drain pipe, you may be able to have your valve face forward depending on the angle of your black water drain. I was not willing to risk adjusting the angle of the black water drain for the fear of creating a leak. You should now have the long sweep sanitary 3” tee dry fitted to the black water drain, the offset reducer installed in the back of the sweep tee with the gray water valve installed into it and the valve handle should open and close without hitting the outside of frame rail. Now for the tricky part, Take the 60® elbow and the 22.5® elbow and fit them together. This part will be trial and error, you will need to mark and cut the 11/2” pipe coming out of the back side of the gray water valve and cut it so the elbow lines up with the 11/2” pipe coming from the gray water tank. You may not be able to get it to line up exactly, but you can get it close enough to make it work just fine. Once you get it to line up then cut a short piece of pipe to fit between the elbow and the line coming out to the gray water tank. This is where you will use a 11/2” rubber coupling with hose clamps to make the final connection to the gray water pipe coming from the tank. Once you are happy with how it all fits, take a marker and put alignment marks across all of your fittings that you need to glue before you take it apart, this is so you can line them back up when you primer and glue them. now prime and glue your fittings together, make sure you put about ½” of fall in the long sweep sanitary 3” tee when you are gluing it onto the black water drain. You will need to work quickly to get everything glued and lined up before it dries completely. Once you have it glued up and the gray water drain hooked up, glue the T1029-1 fitting into the drain outlet side of the long sweep sanitary 3” tee, make sure to align the sewer locking lugs so they are level up and down and side to side. Then restrap the 11/2” gray water drain pipe with about a ¼” of clearance to the bottom of the frame rail.  Test for leaks and you should be go to go. Or if you are coming thru Ohio stop by and we can see about getting it done :-)

Tabaz

"Or if you are coming thru Ohio stop by and we can see about getting it done."

Hmmmm.  Maybe the T@Bazona attendees can take up a collection and fly Pop-T@B out to work on our T@B's?????  Phoenix in January beats Ohio in January every time.

Pop-T@B

Sounds like a good idea!

Michigan_Mike

I'm not sure this has been mentioned here on the forum (so many posts to look back on!) but Popt@b won the "Jim Harvey" award for the best trailer mods at the rally and it was way cool because as you all well know, he definitely is very deserving of the award for his innovations and mods to his trailer and in helping others out in need of help.  That's what this forum is all about and my hat is off to "The Man" for his neat ideas that save space and are extremely helpful to all!  

Pop-T@B

Mike,  Thank you for the "Hats off". I have had a lot of fun using and modifying my T@B and I am glad to help anyone I can doing the same to theirs.

ericnliz

Pop-TAB is the master of mods! Well deserved award!

gulfarea

Pop-Tab that front sewer storage was the best thing I ever did to my T@B, Thanks Art

Pop-T@B

Thanks, Art glad you like it. It's nice to get some good feed back on them.

ericnliz, I don't know about the master, I just get lucky once in a while and things seem to work out ok. :-)

Tommy

Michigan_Mike said:

I'm not sure this has been mentioned here on the forum (so many posts to look back on!) but Popt@b won the "Jim Harvey" award for the best trailer mods at the rally and it was way cool because as you all well know, he definitely is very deserving of the award for his innovations and mods to his trailer and in helping others out in need of help.  That's what this forum is all about and my hat is off to "The Man" for his neat ideas that save space and are extremely helpful to all!  

Congratulations @Pop-T@B Well deserved. We also love the front storage solution.

Tommy

BTW, we really really want to do this mod - the single black/gray drain. We've been scratching our heads at the dual drains from day one when we picked up the trailer. I think I have the basic plumbing skills to get the joints glue right etc. but as many times as I look at the pictures I can't make heads or tails of the parts. If at some point you feel like drawing and publishing a diagram - kind of a "viewed from above" layout showing before and after with reference arrows etc. that would just be the bee's knees.

Pop-T@B

this is what the end of the black water drain fitting looks like, you will need to grid the 4 locking pins (nubs) off of the outside of the fitting , this is so the 3" sweep tee will slide over the end of the fitting when you are ready to glue it on.

this is what the 3" sweep tee looks like, the long sweep end ( end facing the bottom of the picture) will be glued on to the black water drain fitting you just ground the locking pins off of.

the fitting on the left side of the 3" sweep tee is a new T1029-1 RV sewer-termination adapter. this will the new fitting you will glue into the 3" sweep tee that your slinky hose will lock onto when you want to drain your tanks 

 

this fitting is the T1041-1 RV sewer holding tank offset reducer 11/2" x 3", this fitting will be glued into the back of the 3" sweep tee, it should be facing the frame rail. The offset side of the 11/2' fitting will be on the bottom side of the 3" sweep tee when you glue it in. this fitting is what will give you the extra clearance for the drain pipes from the ground when you are done

the fitting I am holding is the T1006-1 RV sewer- fit valve spigot 11/2". this is the new side piece for the 11/2" gray water drain valve, you will bolt this piece to the side of the gray water valve and it will glue into the T1041-1 offset reducer. I did not have another gray water valve to show in the picture. please refer to the complete instructions above for the complete details

this picture shows how the fitting are laid out, again I do not have a gray water valve to put in the picture it would be installed in the gap between the fittings. the gray water valve would be installed into the fitting glued into the 3" sweep tee, the gray water valve would be on the outside of the frame rail as shown in the picture at the top of this post.  you will then have a short piece of pipe coming out of the gray water valve going under the frame rail and it would be glued into the 22.5 and 45 degree fittings, then another short pipe of ABS pipe to connect from the fittings pointing to the rear of the camper back to the gray water pipe coming from the gray water tank, then you would slip the rubber coupling over the pipe and tighten down the clamps. 

please refer to the detailed instructions above, this is just a few more pictures with what I hope is enough insight on how it goes together.

thanks , Shawn

Tommy

Thank you Shawn! The time and energy you have devoted to this is amazing My confidence level is higher now than it was - I think I'm going to give it a go.

jkjenn

Nice job, Shawn! More clearance would really be nice.

MrAmazon

Thanks for sharing! Looks like I'll have a new project when this heat wave is over.  Great work Shawn!!

ChanW

Dang! Where in my list of 'to-do' does this project fit? (Thanks Pop-T@B) B-)

KBaggins1

We did a similar mod, but since I could not find a lot of the parts listed (the big sweeper Tee does not exist at our hardware stores) and some of the valve parts were not available at the local RV dealer .So I just cut the nubs off both outlets and used a compact tee and 2 elbows(22 1/2 degrees). And about 20" of 3" abs pipe in total and a lot of trial fitting without glue. If you look close at the picture you can see where I added a rubber cushion and some ty wraps to take the bounce out of the now heavier assembly. The only item I needed to get from the RV dealer was the new outlet fitting .
And yes the tee is backwards. It fit better that way and looking inside it will not result in a flow restriction. And the grey water valve can be completely opened without interference. This is going to work so much better.   

Michigan_Mike

I just saw this piece mounted on trailers at the factory recently and am curious as to whether anyone here has installed one yet?   They are a bit spendy, going for around $40 right now on eTrailer.   I'm tempted to try one out but thought I'd toss it out for discussion, get some thoughts and insight on installing one to ensure proper clearance and adaptation to the T@B units.  

And yeah I know, no guts, no glory!   

ericnliz

Funny this one came up again today! This afternoon, I'm heading to pick up the WolfT@B from the dealer. (hot water issue fixed!  Bad mixing valve.) I'm stopping by the @Dalehelman mod shop to get my single black & gray drain installed! 

ScottG

Seems doable, but you'd have to be a pretty good pipe fitter as I suspect the existing stubs will not line up at perfect right angles.

My first impression is that I would install this as far back on the existing black water stub as possible, then cut the existing gray water drain and install an elbow to tie it in from the side. Not sure of the clearances, though--I suspect you would have to drop everything down to clear the frame, possibly creating other problems.

It's a nice simple compact unit though--well worth $40 bucks if it actually fit so it wouldn't be in the way or get busted off. I'm gonna' give this some more thought. Thanks for the tip, Michigan_Mike--let us know how it turns out if you decide to take the pioneering plunge!

Verna

I bought everything on Dale's list and it went together fine.  https://tab-rv.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/comment/56613#Comment_56613

ericnliz

@Verna, @Homebodyatheart has an appointment at the @Dalehelman mod shop right after mine today! It's a T@B MOD D@Y! Thanks Dale! Might even turn in to a mini SpoT@B meeting.....hands on!

Michigan_Mike

ScottG said:

Seems doable, but you'd have to be a pretty good pipe fitter as I suspect the existing stubs will not line up at perfect right angles.

My first impression is that I would install this as far back on the existing black water stub as possible, then cut the existing gray water drain and install an elbow to tie it in from the side. Not sure of the clearances, though--I suspect you would have to drop everything down to clear the frame, possibly creating other problems.

It's a nice simple compact unit though--well worth $40 bucks if it actually fit so it wouldn't be in the way or get busted off. I'm gonna' give this some more thought. Thanks for the tip, Michigan_Mike--let us know how it turns out if you decide to take the pioneering plunge!

I agree with your assessment above, hence am a little leery of just snagging one and trying to install it.  I might call Marvin down at the factory and ask him his opinion on the install and see what he thinks.  Austin hadn't done the conversion yet but did express interest and say that he needs to look into it further as it is a conversation that does come up now more often than not.  Joe Mullet likes their new mod on the new trailers, but wanted the install to be cleaner looking (he mentioned this along the line on Wednesday) and more precise.  I'm glad he knew what he was looking at (or desired) because it certainly looked very cleaan and awesome to me!  

The valve above waste valve setup is a Valterra T68C Model and is listed at eTrailer.com.

ericnliz

@Michigan_Mike, I'll ask Dale his opinion on the Valtera model when I see him today. @Pop-T@B, Any thoughts , or input on this one? Might as well get the "Mod Masters' " opinion, the more, the merrier.

Michigan_Mike

ericnliz said:

@Michigan_Mike, I'll ask Dale his opinion on the Valtera model when I see him today. @Pop-T@B, Any thoughts , or input on this one? Might as well get the "Mod Masters' " opinion, the more, the merrier.

Excellent!   I'm not one to just take off and start cutting existing fixtures out without first getting some input and feedback from others prior to attempting this particular mod.  Especially with fixed components that are working properly and in place.  This is a great mod for the trailer and makes this chore simple.  I like the positioning of the handles on the T68C part and am leaning toward installing one as time permits.  

ericnliz

Just be careful how far 'ya lean................ouch....see!