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Taylormade · 08-06-2012, 03:04 PM

We took our 78 Sov out this past weekend to get an idea of where we should be focusing our efforts as we move ever so closer to our camping season.

Everything worked great the first night, however, on the second afternoon there were a few gremlins to deal with.

First, we had some sort of pipe failure, somewhere near the spigot that attaches to the supply hose. I'm not sure if it's in the hot water heater (rear bath) or where but there's no water to any faucet or toilet when on and there's water pouring out of the belly pan. I'm hoping that's an easy fix, but I'm going to start by pulling the Atwood (aftermarket) water heater out this week and start there. My wife said she thought she heard something fall in the bathroom. More than likely she heard a pvc pipe break or (even better) come loose of it's fitting. All I know is by the time I got it shut off, there was half an inch of water on the floor. I also know that I didn't do a great job of leveling the trailer

More annoyingly is the fact that my Armstrong AC drips into the trailer when the temperature gets down to 76 or so. Anything above that is fine, but when it's down to anything below 75 or so, something happens where it starts dripping inside through one of the air vents. Not sure if this is due to coils freezing or what's going on. I installed a new drain hose a few months ago and it's pouring out to the street just fine. Any clues as to what could be causing that?

We had a great time despite those set backs and the rain that limited our activities to indoors.

Taylormade · 08-07-2012, 05:04 PM

So how does the plumbing work in these trailers? Does everything go through the hot water heater first? I'm thinking that's where my problem lies (I'm hoping that it's just a fitting that failed under the pressure) but I don't know obviously.

It's definitely somewhere in the main entry line because when it failed, I had my wife try both faucets and the toilet and none were getting water.

garry · 08-07-2012, 06:47 PM

Not sure I can help but the answer will bump this back to the top for a better answer.

Water inside on the floor does not sound good but I would not start by pulling the hot water heater.

You could have a broken water line from winter freezing the water lines run inside along the wall look under the bed and next to the wheel wells not sure what side and follow the pipe looking for a break. The water line is PEX repair with SharkBite's from the local hardware store.

On the AC there are (on mine) 2 drain line holes very hard to see accessible from the inside but I don't remember exactly what I had to do to clean them out other than take down a lot of stuff.

Taylormade · 08-07-2012, 07:19 PM

Thanks Garry, I appreciate the info and certainly the bump, ha. The break is definitely in the bathroom (or rear) of the trailer but it's not visible inside the black and gray tank hatch. The trailer has been in central Florida for the last decade so it's definitely not from any type of freezing.

On the AC there's one protruding drain line that sticks out the front. I have that run through the skins down to the street. That's dumping like crazy, no worries, it's just when it cools down to the mid 70s that it starts draining inside. I'll search for the service manual to see if there's anything else crazy going on that I'm not aware of.

overlander63 · 08-07-2012, 07:35 PM

I had a leak in the plumbing back there in ours. It turned out to be the pressure relief valve. It's all the way in the streetside rear corner, and has a red and white label on top of it, with a copper line running down into the belly pan.

blkmagikca · 08-11-2012, 09:31 AM

Last winter when I was in Arizona I detected water leaking out of the banana skin approximately under the kitchen sink. What I found it to be was the hose connection from the water pump. It turned out that the street entry is in the rear roadside corner, and the pipe runs along that side inside the storage bay under one of the beds to a back flow valve and then across to the other side of the trailer to the water pump which is located under the floor of the the wardrobe. (ya, I know, I had to empty out a triple wardrobe to get to it!). From the pump, there is a flexible hose, using hose clamps, that goes to a point under the cabinet of the sink, but accessible with a trap door, where it attaches to some kind of Tee. It was at this point that the clamp was loose - when I jiggled the hose, it came loose, spraying water full tilt at me. Panic aside, I turned off the water supply and reattached the hose with the clamp, securing it as tightly as possible. I had no further problem, and when I was Jackson Center for service and mentioned this, they told me it was OK.

Wazbro · 08-11-2012, 10:31 AM

For the AC you mentioned the trailer wasn't very level, was it tilted so the water went away from the drain?

Taylormade · 08-11-2012, 10:34 AM

Thanks Black Magic, I'm not sure if it was the same pipe you're talking about, but I found and fixed my culprit this morning. It was, in fact, a flexible hose, that was slipped over a cut copper piece that came from the hot water heater (or water pump, I didn't really investigate too much) that had two hose clamps on it. It had flown off due to pressure. I wasn't using a regulator at the time (one's in the storage compartment now). Thankfully it was a quick 5 minute fix that seems to be holding fine now.

I haven't gotten around to the A/C fix yet, so if anyone has any advice on that, I'm all ears.

Taylormade · 08-11-2012, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wazbro

For the AC you mentioned the trailer wasn't very level, was it tilted so the water went away from the drain?

Thanks for the question and comment. I don't believe it was off kilt THAT much. If that were the issue, wouldn't it do it at all temperatures and not just when it's cooled off? It wasn't center bubble but it wasn't outside the lines completely either.

Wazbro · 08-12-2012, 12:23 PM

Well the most common cause is the drain tube being clogged. I just fixed one with that problem Friday, water was dripping out of the tube but I ran a piece of weed whacker cord through the tube and for a minute afterwards a steady stream of water came out then it tapered off to dripping again. Some use an air compressor regulated to low pressure to blow out the drip tube.

I would expect humidity more then temperature to make more of a difference in dripping inside, maybe it cooled off inside be the time the water flow backed up enough to overflow the drip pan, which could happen quicker when not level.

The next likely cause would be the drip pan being cracked.

Taylormade · 08-12-2012, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wazbro

Some use an air compressor regulated to low pressure to blow out the drip tube...

I replaced the failed drop tube with a 3/4" clear tube and there's a stream going out, but out of curiosity, how low pressure are we talking, 30psi? I could certainly give that a whirl.