Toilet Leak Question

Several weeks ago I took my virgin trip. Unfortunately, it was not a pleasant experience. While preparing for the dump station, I followed all the recommendations posted on this site with regards to the toilet.

From the inside of the trailer, I pulled the toilet valve. When I went to close the shell from the outside, I noticed that the blue toilet water was leaking pretty badly at the bottom wall right below the toilet. I was aghast and didn't know what to do. I was afraid of doing damage to the floor, wall, etc. so I opened the outside valve right there at the campsite.

I was quite upset since I was looking forward to doing this chore for the first time in my life and have prepared myself for doing it successfully. Never did I realize that I will have a broken toilet. My radio had also popped off when I got to the campsite, the window awning screws didn't work properly and the table latch mechanism was out of place and I could not figure out how the darn thing worked. To top it off, the winds were at 30 miles per hour and the cold air was coming through the radio opening so I couldn't sleep much. I may have forgotten these had the toilet worked properly....

Anyway, I went straight to the dealer. I picked it up this weekend and the one day trip dry camping was much better. I haven't tried out the toilet again, but I am crossing my fingers that it will work.

My question is, would the leak cause any long term damage to the floor/wall? The dealer said it would not.

Here is a photo of my TM. She looks beautiful, but I sure wished the folks at TM would have done their jobs right with mine.

I will test it out as soon as the rain ends here. As for the other site, the contents were fairly clean (no #2's and just a few #1's) and the site has very few campers this time of the year. I probably could have used it for another round, but was anxious to do the dump thing for the first time in my life. Still I rather I didn't have to dump right there at the camp site. I'm sure I would have been even more upset, if the toilet was used extensively.

Dealer said it was a broken valve. I did not notice any leaks prior to closing the shell.

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This happened to us on our last trip. We pulled the lever and pretty soon blue stuff started to drip from under the outer wall. We headed to the dump station real fast. When we got home we tore out the toilet, not a pleasant thing. We found out our foam seal around the toilet was kinda odd shaped and the valve seal had a small tear in it. So our toilet was slowly leaking into the black pipe the whole weekend. We just never walked around back of camper till it was time to go home. We called the Tm dealer but he didn't know how to get seals. So I called our local other RV dealer and the thetford salesman was at the dealership at that moment. He couldn't give us the right numbers for the replacement seals either. He called the company and they are sending us a spec sheet so we can get the right parts we need. We are replacing all our gaskets(or seals) there are 3 total in the bottom the toilet. My husband doesn't ever want to do that job again. So I guess our next trip will be without toilet if we don't ever get our parts in time. We are leaving September 10th for the weekend. I made reservations close to the flush bathrooms. Has anybody else ever changed their gaskets(seals) ? and if so what part numbers did you use? We have been waiting for this spec sheet for 3 days now.

hope someone can help,
mamabear

Sorry to hear of these toilet problems. We had a relatively minor problem with the toilet on our 1998 TM. When we flushed, a small amount blue liquid would drip down the side of the toilet from the top edge and go on the bathroom floor. Yuck! We went to a nearby dealer, near our campground. (He wasn't even a TM dealer.) He found our toilet in his Thetford catalog and we ordered a long rubber gasket that goes around the top edge of the upright section before the top piece attaches. We disassembled it ourselves with the help of the xeroxed diagram from the catalog, and it has been fine ever since. I guess we were really luckier than some of you who had "yuck" cut loose in the walls.

Regards, smookie

Been there. Done that. Click on http://www.thetford.com/parts_electramagic.cfm
It shows the schmatic and has a parts list. Call Thetford to order the part. If the toilet is less than one year old the part is free.

genesc

We, too, had problems with leakage on our new 1998 2619. Our dealer tried to repair it with a new slider valve. After a couple of more problems that I tried to fix myself, one of the customer service reps asked me about the location of the plastic locator disc. He described where it was supposed to be, and my installation didn't have one. See the directions below, and look at the diagram at [http://www.thetford.com/permanent_el...icservice.cfm] item #5 of the instructions (repeated below).

Place unit on closet flange and locate position for plastic locator disc by tracing around one of the front legs. Drill 5/32" dia. hole in floor and fasten disc to floor with flat sides oriented as shown. Use #10 screw provided. Important: This disc prevents toilet from moving on floor.

If you are having difficulty, try moving your toilet with a twisting motion. If it moves a 1/4" or more, your unit is missing the locator disc.

OK maybe we found another problem! We don't have a hole drilled under either front foot? Our toilet is already tore out and CLEANED out. So when I read your reply I went down and looked at the floor and there is no small hole drilled for the plastic locator disc. So can we get one of them too? Did you have to replace all of your ez slide valve or just the gaskets? I wonder if they didn't use those locator disc's in the 1990's. Our camper is a 1997.

thank you for your help,
mamabear

Yes, Thetford will send you the locator disk, at no cost as I remember. My complete ez slide valve was replaced twice, under warranty, before I discovered the lack of the locator disk. The disk was shown on the parts list that came with our 1998 model.

The locator disk is a VERY IMPORTANT part of the proper installation. Ours worked flawlessly for 2 years after I installed the disk.

OK, I was going to ask a question about the toilet. I have a new to me 1992 m23 (2720) and in the process of cleaning it and getting it ready to camp, I noticed that my toilet moves side to side about an inch.

From a previous post....."If it moves a 1/4" or more, your unit is missing the locator disc."

So, this concerns me because I definately don't want the toilet water leaking out. Do you think that the locator disk is what I need to fix the toilet? Also, if I have to take out the toilet, should I go ahead and replace the gaskets? The toilet in my TM is the Electra Blue model.

Thanks in advance,
Emory.

Well, I took out the toilet and found that the locks that hold the unit to the floor had come loose. There is no locator disk that I saw. But, I just repositioned the toilet and locked it back in place and it seems very sturdy. Hopefully, it won't leak.

Emory.