New owner, on our first trip holding tank questions

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jetta_jimmy

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Aug 10, 2015
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Philly Burbs
Hi everyone! We are on our first trip with our 83 leisure craft. I hooked up my city water and was running the water to clean up some dishes, I noticed a leak out of both gray and black water tanks. They are leaking at the outlet pipes. I am wondering how to repair them and how they are put together.

I am thinking no matter what I have to drop the tanks and replace all the plumbing from the tanks to the outlets?

Thanks for any help!
 
I think you might get a better answer if you could post some photos of the leak. There are many different configurations of holding tanks so it would help to know what yours looks like.
 
I don't think you will need to drop the tanks. I think you should just remove the pipes and reinstall them again with new pipe tape. But we have plumbers here who will know more about it than me so wait for their opinion.
 
Thanks! So there's some sort of tape connecting the pipe to the tank? Any ideas of how to separate the two? Other words it's not like a pvc glue or a threaded fitting?
 
Well it can be a fitting or it could be glue, you would have to take it apart to find out. I would guess it screws together and uses plumbing tape to seal it up.

http://www.amazon.com/Dixon-Valve-TTB75-Industrial-Temperature/dp/B003D7K8E0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1440340263&sr=8-1
 
if the fitting at the tank is a threaded fitting,it may be just a matter of tightening it up. Or you might be able to take it out and reseal it with plumber's tape.
If it is a glued fitting,someone else will have to suggest how to remove it and reseal.

Or you simply could seal it up with 3M 5200 marine sealant without removing anything.

http://www.amazon.com/3M-5200-Adhesive-Sealant-cartridge/dp/B0000AY6AC/ref=sr_1_1?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1440351513&sr=1-1&keywords=5200+sealant&pebp=1440351524788&perid=0S6A1BMJDAFD5ZJN9EM1
 
Thanks, all for the quick response!

I dumped both tanks yesterday before leaving camp. I stopped at an rv place on my way home, the flange is glued into the tank.

I read somewhere trying to re-glue it after cleaning well with a few coats of new abs glue will do the trick. I'm going to try that first, but I also have to replace both valves, so maybe I'll just replace the whole pipe system from the tanks to the hookup outlet.

I'll post an update as I can't image that this is the first time it's happened, especially with an older rv. I also don't want to replace the tanks.
 
good luck with that repair

I'll throw out one thought..... looks like your drain pipes are exposed like mine under the RV

Mine are right behind the rear tires on the MH.  One concern I've had is in the event of a blow out, or hitting some road debris, there's a really good chance of taking out that piping and/or valves.  What a mess that would be with full tanks!

I've always thought it would be great to add some structure to shield the pipes.... but even better than that would be for the valves to be snuggled up near the tanks, so that if the piping was damaged, I might be less likely to have a spill and hazardous waste issue!  I'm not sure I could reasonably do that in my case, but maybe something for you to consider if you are repiping anyway....
 
Good thought on the protection, I have none, but have read of people removing the belly pan. Maybe some sort of mud flaps would add some protection?

I was in a bigbox hardware store tonight. JB Weld makes a water epoxy putty, there was also a putty in the plumbing department too. Nothing specifically said they'd work with abs.

Since this is on the flange of the output, could I clean everything really well, maybe rough things up a bit with sandpaper and use an epoxy putty all the way around the outlet? That brings me to another question of what to clean it with?

I just don't want to use something that won't work and have to deal with not only the leak, but then I'd have an issue removing the "fix" I attempted.
 
No one else has mentioned this so I will.  I was given a tip by an RV guy to jack up the rig higher on one side so any residual waste in the tanks collect away from the outlet so things can seal better and you won't have to fight the drip drip drip while you're working on it.
 
Thanks for the help!

I found a video on youtube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2rVLU3bDMY

I also referenced this -  http://rvsandohvs.blogspot.com/2012/09/holding-tank-repairs.html

I felt it was best to do the ABS repair suggestion first, rather than have something I try fail, and have to then deal with getting the attempt off.

I cleaned everything very well with acetone and discovered way more than what I thought. There was a small hole in the gray water tank and cracking all around the flange. The Black water tank had cracking all around the flange. Both seemed glued into place, and I wanted to see if this gluing fix would do the trick. Granted, it's more tricky when it's around a flange, and not on a flat surface.

I drilled where I saw the cracks heading to the ends of the cracks.

The tanks were emptied on our first trip, there was some residual in the gray, I should have parked on more on an incline - hind sight - 20/20

I found I needed to replace the gate valves, so I haven't tested anything yet.

Will post the results as soon as I get the valves in.
 
Here are the before and after photos.
 

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