Handle for Black Water Gate Valve?

FishDoctor

I have a 2017 T@B Max S. Someone (no, not me!) ran into the handle for the black water pipe gate/slider valve with a lawnmower and cracked one side of the handle off. Has anyone here replaced the handle on one of these? Does it just unscrew from a threaded post? Source of part? Thanks!

ChrisandAlexis

@FishDoctor , we lost half of our handle too but it was from the foot on the front stabilizer snapping it off while we were traveling on the road. I took a look at it while doing the mod to combine the black and grey water outlets I can see that the whole gate mechanism would need to be replaced. We have a 2017 CS-S.

FishDoctor

@ChrisandAlexis -- thanks for the information. I haven't personally looked at it yet. Just had some messages from the person (OK, it was my lovely, wonderful wife!) that (accidentally ) assaulted our T@B. I'll take a closer when I get home, but I was worried that the whole valve might need to be replaced. Maybe I'll just be able to epoxy the broken piece back on.

Dalehelman

If your handle is threaded on you can get a replacement. If it is not the gate valve is easily replaced just four small nuts and bolts. And they are not very expensive. There are 2 different brands. Nu Camp has been using the Bristol also Camco brand.

Camco 39513 3" Waste Valve Camco  $14.56

lapowers57

I had half of my handle fall off this week while winterizing.  I don't know if epoxy is the right choice.  I am thinking crazy glue or JB weld.  A quick search didn't indicate what type of plastic it is but gluing is my first option.

ColoradoJon

If it were me I would definitely go with replacing the gate valve.  @Dalehelman posted the valve needed, and at $14.56 plus maybe 10 minutes of time I think that is a much better solution than epoxy!

FishDoctor

@Dalehelman Thanks for the information. I didn't realize that replacing the entire waste valve might be so simple and so inexpensive.

Dalehelman

Don’t forget to drain holding tank before starting this repair. Or have someone standing by with a video cam.

FishDoctor

Dalehelman said:

Don’t forget to drain holding tank before starting this repair. Or have someone standing by with a video cam.

Are you speaking from experience?!

  

Verna

I am still embarrassed that I tried so hard to clean my black water tank so well, but Dale got doused when he opened the gate to make the one pipe mod for me . No, I would never have put it on video.  He said he wasn’t as finicky as me, but I still feel bad for him.  Thanks again, @Dalehelman

Dalehelman

@Verna No harm done after all it’s not  nuclear waste.

Fergie

The discussion about the black water value breaking brought back the experience with same we had past year in late June as we were on the first leg of our trip. The following excerpt from a report I wrote to friends and family during this trip last summer across the U.S. and Canada to our new home in Alaska describes the experience:

"The RV life, as Forrest Gump would say, is “Like a box of Chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get!” As we were making reservations on the go, we planned some stops for a few days leaving us some slack in our schedule for contingencies. Well we ran into our first problem which is using up some of that contingency! We were on our way down route 79 Sunday from Rapid City, ND to Gering, NE (near Scott’s Bluff National Monument) when a truck pulling a big horse trailer lost a retread from a tire and left it in the right lane of the highway. 

We couldn’t avoid it without causing an accident (a car was starting to pass us at the time) and we had to straddle it to avoid causing us to lose control. We heard it thump as we went over it, but our SUV stayed steady and under control.  

It wasn’t until about 10 miles later when we found a place to pull over that we found that the tread had broken off our “grey” water outlet valve and broken the handle off the gate on the “black” water outlet valve! On our little camper they are up front in back of the hitch. Fortunately, we didn’t have anything in the “grey” water tank and, although we had waste in the “black” water tank, the gate itself held and at least we didn’t spill stinky stuff all over the highway! 

So we went back the Rapid City area where there are services that could repair this damage and that’s where we have been since Sunday. We spent last night in a motel with our camper parked across the street in a big lot and the best we could do was to get a “Mobil RV” repairman to come this afternoon to fix it! Who knew there were Mobil RV repairman! He was an interesting character named “Toby” who has been doing RV repairs for 40 years and doing the mobile repair for 15 of those. He replaced the broken valve and repaired the other in less than an hour in 90 degree heat for just over $200. Afterwards we towed the camper to the Rapid City RV Park high atop a hill overlooking the city where we are now waiting out a thunderstorm brought on by the high heat."

One of our many experiences on our 8000 mile trip! The good news is that this was the only malfunction or breakdown experience we had on the entire journey with either the T@B or the tow vehicle. Part of this was luck, but a good bit of the "luck" was the workmanship of the T@B. The only suggestion I would make is if they could put some sort of guard to protect these gates as on most RV's they are in the back and mounted much higher.

Fergie

  

Sharon_is_SAM

Our T@Bs are well made, but the dump valves do seem to attract mishap.  Thank you for sharing your "on the road" repair solution.  Often wonder how and where to find resources while traveling.  On another note, did you feel like a lightening magnet on top of that hill in an RV in a thunderstorm?  I guess the RV park planners had no electrical background

Fergie

To: Sharon and John

Actually it was a very interesting campground. There were four levels as you went from the top of the hill to the bottom. The top level was where all the facilities, office, showers, etc. were and where the really big rigs were in the pull-thru's. The second level where we parked (see attached pic) was for back-in's and smaller trailers. The third level was mostly tent campers and the slight level area further down had tent campers! We were in a protected nitch in the hillside. I suppose there could have been lightning strikes, but the campground certainly wasn't the highest point in the area.
 
At any rate we were just glad to get some cooling after days in the high 80's and into the 90's! We had this pattern of high heat for the first half of our trip thru Colorado to California until we got up past Seattle, WA. Thanks for the T@B A/C!

Fergie

Sharon_is_SAM

Wow, so even Rapid City was hot.  I thought their elevation would have prevented that.  I will keep that campground in mind.  Looks cozy.