Hi All,
I'll stop lurking and introduce myself by way of sharing an experience that I imagine I'd find outlined dozens of times in these forums. Today we picked up our 28' 2016 International Signature that we purchased from a private party a month ago. It's been at a dealer who we asked to look over it and fix any issues it might have. I suspect I wasn't specific enough about what they should check since, well, had they supplied water they would have discovered that water poured out the back of the toilet.
Fortunately, the toilet manual (Dometic 310) was near by and it clearly indicated that freeze damage is common and the leak appeared to be from the valve assembly. Also fortunately, we had planned a "shakedown cruise" at a park two miles from the dealer AND the dealer had the replacement part in stock.
I mostly followed the instructions in this YouTube Video:
If you have the EXACT right tools it will take you 10 minutes. If you don't, you'll spend 45 minutes trying to make it work with the wrong tools then 30 min driving and buying the exact right tools. Maybe I'm not creative or handy enough.
In my case the right tools were:
- Stubby flat head screwdriver
- Tiny ratchet with 1/4" socket
- Grooved Pliers
The screwdriver has to be short enough to fit behind and beneath the valve assembly (for popping the tabs and screwing the screw in). If I had this and the pliers I think I would have been fine. The tiny ratchet did make removing the hexhead retaining screw super easy and is the way to go if you have it. The socket has to be small enough to get to the screw around the rest of the valve assembly. My standard sockets just wouldn't reach it.
The grooved pliers worked pretty well to catch the end of the retaining ring and pry the metal band up so that I could then just grab the end and tear it off. I didn't need wire cutters or anything.
The valve shown in the pictures is the damaged one, looks like it's been cross threaded, and there's a very obvious crack along the underside (not shown).
One repair down, many more to go including:
- replacing the shower head which has cracked down the handle and sprays from that.
- replacing the bathroom faucet, which drips pretty solidly
I've got some screendoor and deadbolt issues I'll be researching and possibly posting about in the near future. The fridge is on the fritz (probably newbie expectations). I haven't even tried HOT water yet, just controlling it's coming and going to start off with. Fortunately I had a friend who's recommendation was "Expect chaos". Excellent advice. So far my only regret is that I drove 960 miles from Arizona to Idaho and it's still too hot. Dual AC's work wonderfully, so far.
Linear Mode
