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dnovosad · 10-13-2013, 07:05 AM

I have a 25 ft Safari 1998 (rear bed), the white plastic drain valve broke and I took our the two screws to remove it. It will not come out. There must be something else attached to it. Does anyone know what and how to get at it out? Because there is no access to get behind this valve. And is the outside the actual tank or a cover to protect the fresh water tank?

There is also two tee petcocks off the bottom to the left of the white valve. I have attached a photo of the existing layout. They are rusty and I started to remove the nut that I thought was from the bottom of the tank. The nut turns but feels like it is in plastic and I am stripping what ever it was threaded into.
Can anyone tell me what I got my self into there?

Any help with clearing these questions up would be great, otherwise it may be a trip to a trailer repair shop.
Thanks to all in advance.

Bruce B · 10-13-2013, 07:20 AM

I do not see the photo....
Bruce

airdreamers · 10-13-2013, 07:22 AM

Welcome to the broken white plastic valve club. Same thing happened to me a while back, I just left it alone. Unless you need to drain the tank, pursue a fix. There are some threads here on the "forums" dealing with this problem, do a search. Good luck I will be watching for another fix with you.

polarlyse · 10-13-2013, 09:20 AM

Been there, done that. I was lucky and had a small removable access panel below the " white valve ". I recommend you get a new one plus a spare before removing it. Besides the screws the valve is clamped to a short piece of hose which is clamped to the tank. That's why you can't simply unscrew it. My hands are big and my access was small so it was a challenge but I did it. That was on our older Excella so one day I need to check our newer one. Oh yeah. Carry a spare piece of the short hose too.

dnovosad · 10-14-2013, 09:41 AM

I have slowly went at the repair after reading others advise (thank you). I will try to post some pictures later at what I found and how I did my repair (not sure how to post pictures). I found out that the fresh water tank is covered with a protective plastic cover. I found that I do have an access to the hose that attaches the white drain valve. I found that there is a rusted hose clamp attaching the hose to the white drain valve. I found that the two petcocks are connected to drain pipes attached that go through the floor. ( I cut an access hole in the plastic cover to gain access to the piping). I still do not have anything removed as far as the damaged valves but I am hopeful after spraying a thread release product "Fluid Film" purchased at CTC in Canada everything will be easier to remove. Cross your fingers.

dnovosad · 10-14-2013, 09:43 AM

Sorry I will see if I can get some photos up of what I have and the repairs I am making to it.

polarlyse · 10-15-2013, 08:46 AM

Be sure to get new stainless steel clamps and toss the old rusty ones. Use cate to position the new ones so to make it easy the next time

dnovosad · 10-27-2013, 01:26 PM

I took a series of photos during my drain valve adventure. I'm very happy with the results and feel that the fix is better than the original AS design. If anyone has questions about the photos post them in the thread.

I tried to access the piping from the inside of the trailer behind a wood panel that was attached with screws and nails from the back. This was quite a challenge and I had to use mirrors and lots of patience. After I removed the panel I realized I needed to replace the piping from the outside. One fortunate aside: I discovered that the heating duct was crimped which I was able to re-route.

There were two separate drain valves: one from the water tank and the other from the hot and cold piping system. The fresh water white plastic drain valve had an inaccessible hose clamp that was rusted so I had to enlarge the access by cutting out more of the protective plastic housing to access the existing pipe. I extended the piping with Pex fittings and added a new brass valve.

Petcock drain valves from the hot and cold water piping were rusted with no access so I also cut the plastic housing that protects the piping and extended the piping using Pex fittings and new brass valves.

I replaced the plastic housing with aluminum and sealed all openings.
Everything is now accessible if any future repairs are needed.
All of this took about 2 days because of the access problem. The actual piping and fittings only took a couple of hours.