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Water tank replacement on 30 ft Flying Cloud
Earlier this year I was preparing for a trip to Ohio. I filled my 50 Gal tank on Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday it was down to 20% full. I thought I left the drain open so made sure it was shut and filled it again before I left. That night I arrived at the campground with the tank down to 40%. Took a look under the tank and it was dripping from the inspection plate. Removed the plate and determined it was leaking from the low point drain where it attached to the tank. I'll post some photos.
Tried to fix it with eterna bond and some of that white leak tape to use as a compression bandage and force the eterna bond into the crack. Eterna Bond sticks to everything except polyethylene. This slowed the leak to only 30 gallons a day instead of 40.
Decided to pull the tank and repair it by heating up some polyethylene filler and melting it into the crack. When I pulled the tank I found the crack between the flange and the fitting body due to over tightened male fitting.
Welding in filler did not work for me so I picked up a new tank at JC and took it home to Texas to replace it myself. I was out of warranty but JC gave me a good deal on the tank since it should not have failed so soon. Pulled one right off the factory floor for me.
Taking out the tank is a matter of removing the filler and vent tubes (remove outside filler port and take off hose clamps) removing the pump intake tube (from inside the trailer at the pump) and removing the drain valve and tube (via the bottom inspection plate). Then take off all the bolts holding the tank metal cover and drop the tank down onto some PVC pipes so you can roll it out form under the trailer which you have raised up by about 6 inches to give yourself room to work. The tank sensor wires had to be cut on mine to free the tank, once it was lowered.
Once the tank is out, remove all the fittings and replace any that are bad. Clean all the fittings and use pipe dope and/or Teflon tape as you reinstall in the new tank. Do not over tighten any fitting, 3 turns is adequate to get a seal. Over tightening, as was done on my drain fitting, will just cause it to fail later. You can water test your tank at this point, but empty tank before going further.
Carefully and slowly remove the sensor patch from your old tank using a hair dryer to heat it up and a wide putty knife to slowly peel it off. Clean the new tank really well before you apply the sensor and heat it up with the hair dryer before applying the sensor.
Place the tank back in the cover replacing any Styrofoam insulation you broke in your excitement to get the tank out.
Roll your tank back under the trailer and splice the sensor wires back on. You labeled them right? Make sure you feed the plumbing tubes up and then use some ratchet straps to hoist the tank and cover back into place. Align one corner and loosely fasten it with a bolt , then put a bolt in loosely at the opposite corner. Now go up top and make sure all the plumbing is coming out where it should before going below and loosely installing all bolts before you begin to tighten them all down. Reinstall the fill pipe, vent pipe, pump intake and drain fittings the same way you took them off. Do not forget the little spring that goes inside the short piece of drain hose. Its there to keep the hose from collapsing if it gets a kink in it which could happen because the tank can move a little inside its cover.
It took me about 4 hours to complete the job without any special tools except a mechanics creeper and a bottle opener.
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