Debonding ABS Drain?

Brent Dowell

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Reno NV
So, Here's the deal. I've had a weird leak under my camper for a while. Basically just ignored. A few weeks ago I pulled the bottom off the camper and was looking around to see what it might be and I found this.

On the end of the 90 degree elbow in front, you can see it has some white goop around it. That apparently is some sort of bulkhead that used to be directly bonded in some way to the top of the grey water tank.

This is for the bathroom sink drain, and while we don't use that sink very much, the hole in the top of the grey water tank would slosh out of that hole and eventually find it's way out of the camper in various places.

I went to the local RV Parts store, and the guy was able to give me a rubber bulkhead fitting that should provide a nice flexible seal.

as I see it, I've got two options, cut that elbow off and glue a new one on, one that will fit into the rubber bulkhead fitting, or find some way to get that welded on fitting off of the pipe.

The problem with #1 is that I really don't have a lot of room there and I'd really like to not have to completely rebuild the whole thing.

I guess it can't hurt to just try and carefully carve the broken fitting off, and if I mess that up, I could alway just go back to the parts store and buy everything I need to rebuild it completely!

greywaterconnection.jpg
 
I am going through the same thing with a hot tub. I am at the point of just go get all the parts I need to rebuild the whole thing. This is after trying to get fittings "carved" off or out.:thumb:
 
This is one of those times when I know what the 'right' way to do the job is and I'm doing everything I can to figure out how not to have to do that :rofl:

Even if I was able to carve that off, I can't get the bulkhead fitting into the tank from the top.

This just went from a quick little ABS project into a huge mess.

I now have to drop the whole tank and fix it from the top... :doh:

Oh well...
 
Dang. I was JUST gonna' pipe up & tell you to forget trying to unweld that ABS or carve it off - to just saw the old fittings off & plumb it up fresh... but it looks moot now.

Just for reference, ABS is CHEAP. Aggravation isn't.

Any way you can get other rubber fittings in there? You can buy rubber elbows & tees in that size... dang near buy rubber PIPE in that size.
 
Well that was seriously not fun. :doh:

1) The tank wouldn't drop completely because there was another drain going into it that was permanently glued in. :doh:

2) The fitting that had come off had a thick bulkhead glued in that I needed to get out. Ended up using a dremel on an angle thingy to cut it out.

I suppose I should be grateful it wasn't the blackwater tank.

The good news is that once I got the hole drilled the right size and the old bulkhead removed the new rubber grommet fit like a dream.

I got the tank fastened back up just as the snow started to come down.

The jobs not completely done yet, but at least the hard part is :thumb::thumb:

Oh, and I just cut the old fitting off the pipe and glued the new one on. I'm hoping that 3/4 of an inch won't be a big deal when I go to put it back in.
 
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