OK, started work on the back end tanks. First step was to avoid being crushed. Since the gray dump valve had been broken in the closed position, I knew they was some water (now ice) remaining in it. So I employed the leveling jacks as safeties. Worked great (both here and yesterday when I took the fresh tank down).
The rear tank pan is bolted around three sides and rests on the bumper along it's back edge. My first hint to others, if the tank pan looks like it will hinge down once the bolts are out, you are only partly right. The pan is tightly notched for the main 3" drain pipe, so it doesn't slide forward on the street side very much--you can't get it down unless you remember that the bumper is removable! Four simple rusty screws and voila, the pan is down! Note the plastic bumper insert, which makes a nice bumper locker. Also note that even with the bumper off and bumper locker removed, you still wouldn't be able to do much work on the dump valves, even if they were installed in a way that you could do something with them.
The pan had one nice feature--the "insulation" is sculpted to slope the bottom of the tank very slightly towards the drain.
First thing to note is that the tank is tiny--very thin, only about 2-3/4" thick. The area above the tank is basically 7" high--what gives? There's lots of room above it and around the curb end. I computer it holds about 2600 cubic inches, or 11 gallons. The space available is about 6800 cubic inches, or about 29 gallons, and that would allow for a foot of room on the street end of the tank to allow for better plumbing and maybe an installation that can be maintained in the future. Next step, find vendor for custom tank. BTW, the tank does not taper as it appears in this photo. This is an artifact of the wide angle lens.
I call your attention to the styrofoam brace in the above photo. There was also one styrofoam block on top of the tank and another that had escaped forward into the vacant belly pan area. Not much mechanical support. The tank supposedly rested on the pan. However, once I got the pan down, the nearly full tank was supported by the vent line at one end and two drains--shower and kitchen sink--on the other! No way to tell if the tank had been hanging on the PVC or had actaully been resting on the pan.
I did get one good idea out of the tank itself. Put in a cleanout fitting so you can put a high pressure hose to it and really wash out the inside if you happen to get chunks inside that will jam the dump valve.
This last photo shows how the bottom of the black tank has a sump that protrudes down through the floor. Nice. Plus the tank is up in the living space and should have less of a freezing problem (not zero, just reduced).
Take note on one feature. The long "U-shaped" drain line is from the shower. It looped over the top of the gray tank and entered the top near the back edge. Why? I assume this was to prevent hydraulic surge filling the shower pan with gray water in the event of moderate to hard braking. It is a bit of overkill, but it's a hint that it would be a really good idea to put the fittings for the shower drain line as near the back edge of the tank as possible. I don't think it makes any difference whether it's up high or not, except as a precaution. Hydraulically it makes no difference.
Last photo? Just kidding. Here's a pic of the fresh water tank pan. Note the steel reinforced access hole in the middle. See previous post for discussion. Ick and patooey on this design.
I'm going to submit a custom design to All Rite manufacturing. I think I've seen some posts on other custom tank outfits. If anyone has their names, please post. thanks.
Floor? Coming? Crap! I found one more big bolt up in front yesterday and got it out, thinking, now the shell will move a little. Not only does it not move, but I put a jack under the edge of the shell up front to see if it was just stuck by sealer or something and it lifted the whole trailer. I've been over every joint like a blind man feeling brail and I cannot figure out where the shell is attached. I may have to take out the twin battery boxes to see if they are hiding a fastener...
Zep
Did you remove all of the plywood floor before trying to lift the shell. Don't forget that on a '77 unit there is a c-channel on the bottom of the u-channel that the plywood slides into. If there is any plywood still in place it could be keeping the body from lifting.
On my '73 I also found two rather substantial bolts up at the front end that held the body to the frame. They are close to the spots where the frame comes into the front of the belly pan from the hitch. I vaguely recall that they are welded to the frame on the bottom end. Since I was not lifting the body I cut notches in my new subfloor to fit around these bolts. I think that the nut should be visible from above in the front area.
Did you remove all of the plywood floor before trying to lift the shell. Don't forget that on a '77 unit there is a c-channel on the bottom of the u-channel that the plywood slides into. If there is any plywood still in place it could be keeping the body from lifting.
On my '73 I also found two rather substantial bolts up at the front end...
Yes, I found the two bolts. One was pretty obvious, but I didn't find the othe one until day before yesterday. I was convinced that would do the trick, but no. Aerowood took a look at the first bolt that I found and agreed that it was very curious--different from the ones that are in the outriggers. When I only found one, I was perplexed that the bolt was a loner and obviously asymetrical. Now that I've found the other one, it makes some sense.
C channel? I have noticed along the sides (not in the curved areas, eg, forward of the door) there is an L bracket the hangs down over the edge of the plywood, but I haven't seen any sign of a C channel wrapped around the edge. I'll take a closer look, since the skin hangs down and might be fooling me about that. Thanks.
With the crazy thought that I ought to do a little fixing admidst all this tearing apart, I decided to weld the crack in the fresh tank. I used the Harbor Freight hot air welder ($30) and it seems to have worked like a champ. I grooved a "V" along the crack about half the depth of the tank skin and modified a 1/4" LDPE rod per the diagram. I think good welding is promoted by preparing the faces of the joint so you don't have to melt the entire skin depth in order to get good melting and mixing. The squiggly [Photoshopped] line shows the approximate location of the the crack.
This weld took all of 10 minutes to prepare and 2 minutes to execute (and 4 months of stewing over the right process and materials).
I liked this weld enough to be motivated to see if I could weld two flat surfaces together without any surface preparation. You can see the tab here is half-welded to the tank. I've pried the tab up almost 90 degress and haven't seen any tendency to separate the joint. The real purpose here was to see if I dared fabricate a small sump and weld it to the tank. I think the answer is yes. The only caution is that this tab was very thin, about 3/32", and it was thinnner towards the welded end--a thicker sheet will be a lot more difficult to weld.
For those interested, here's the INCA Plastics data I found on the tank.
Wow Zep, you are GOOD. That tank repair looks strong and very solid.
I know often I get thinking about something that needs doing and in my mind make it more of an issue than it turns out to be when I finally get down to doing it. Then I shake my head and wonder what all the mental stress was all about. Of course that doesn't stop me from doing it all over again on the next project, but at least I know in th end I'll just get to it and it will be done.
Am enjoying the thread. Thanks for sharing in such detail.
Barry
__________________ Barry & Donna Life is short - so's the door on an Flying Cloud (ouch) 1951 Flying Cloud 21' 1957 Pontiac Safari 2dr wagon TV
It's warmed up a bit this weekend, so I'm back at it.
First and most important, I got the bad piece of flooring out and the shell loose. Sure enough, it was one, repeat, one, screw holding the shell down. My Safari has two battery boxes with access doors in the front just over the tongue. The standard steel plate sticks up between them, with lots of rivets through the shell to hold the front end of the shell and the frame together. However, there are also two narrow straps of steel outboard of the battery boxes. These narrow straps were almost completely covered by the white goop sealer. A screw that had rusted and had the head twisted off [by me, or I would have never figured it out] was the culprit.
The only other major progress was the wheel well. I decided to take a look inside and I'm glad I did. There was only the one piece of insulation, sorta lying across the top of the inner liner. I don't know why the factory took the trouble to put it in at all--pretty worthless.
I'm going to submit a custom design to All Rite manufacturing. I think I've seen some posts on other custom tank outfits. If anyone has their names, please post. thanks.
I had som eproblems with All-Rite. I spent a mint with them, and their serive after the sale is poor.
Had to get my grey tank fixed twice so far. They won't warranty their stuff at all. Just a heads up.
...I had som eproblems with All-Rite. I spent a mint with them, and their serive after the sale is poor...They won't warranty their stuff at all. Just a heads up.
Thanks, Uwe. A lot of members have had excellent luck with them, but I asked for a simple modification from their usual (more on this later--it has to do with keeping the tank from freezing) and they absolutely couldn't consider it.
I'm thinking of welding up my own tank. A full sheet of poly is about $100, but I haven't checked the prices on the fittings yet, which might be substantial.
I would be very interested to hear how it works out if you do make your own tank. I would be willing to consider doing that myself too given enough basic information on how to do it. So please keep us posted. From what I have seen I don't think that the fittings should be all that expensive.
Malcolm, it will be about three weeks before I start the tank. The materials arrive pretty quickly after the order, but it's a trip up to Ft Collins to get it and I'm going to combine that with getting some 0.032 2024, which won't be available until then. I will certainly post all the details. Welding the fresh tank and especially getting the tab to weld on made me think I could actually do a tank myself. But we all know welding a small tab versus getting a perfect weld along some 80" of seam are quite different stories.
OK, today it got really cold, so I'm going to pursue some side projects. First one is replacing the worn out battery boxes. The doors are cast aluminum and are in exellent shape, plus the two holes in the shell motivate me to see if I can replace the boxes. The doors are sturdy, a have a bottom edge thta matches the trim belt, and have a convenient flange on their inside face that are perfect for riveting a sheet metal box to the frame:
I checked at Wally Mart and they have an $8 plastic battery case that will fit snugly inside such a box. With the ten rectangular box sides in the drawing and some 3/4" aluminum angle from HD, I think the box can be riveted up pretty quickly. The case will contain any spills and can slide in and out. There will be enough clearance over the top to allow for sufficient slack wire.
It occurs to me to wonder if it is possible to bend the poly material - perhaps aided by a low setting on your hot air welding tool. Have you been thinking of doing something like that to reduce the actual amount of joints where welding is required? It sounds like you might have been given the number of inches of weld you mentioned.
Your battery box idea looks like a good solution. Your battery door is entirely different than what I have on my '73 though. My door is about half below the beltline and half above with the hinges actually underneath and inboard by maybe 8" or 10". I checked my photos and found that the only one I have at the moment is not a very good one. It is a very small part of the photo I took on the day that I picked up my unit from the previous owner. Note the grass growing up around the bottom of the trailer in the attached photo.
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