Flushing the gray tank

Our coach has a black tank flush, where it can rinse out the toilet tank, but doesn’t have a similar mechanism for the gray tank. It generally gets cleaned out by filling it up with soapy water from showers, laundry, and sink usage, but occasionally an extra rinse is beneficial.

To do that, one could just close the gray dump valve and let it fill up with regular usage, or one could fill it via the dump valve.

To do the latter, I have a Camco Dual Flush Pro Holding Tank Rinser, which connects in the sewer pipe and includes a gate valve and hose connection, and a knob to direct the water towards the tank or towards the outlet:

Gate valve and hose connected to sewer pipe

By closing the gate valve, opening the gray valve in the wet bay, and turning on the water, it backs up into the gray tank.

To avoid over-filling the tank, I watch the level indicator in the wet bay, and also a water flow meter connected to the hose:

Water flow meter

Here’s the whole setup, including the wet bay:

Wet bay

For best results, this can be combined with Liquified Tank & Sensor Cleaner, to give a deep clean of the tank.

Replacing light under kitchen sink

I previously replaced the cover on the light under the sink, but it got knocked off again, so I decided to replace the whole light fixture this time, figuring that the clips that hold the cover on may be weak.

The light is available from Tiffin’s online parts store, part number 5032143 “Light Wardrobe Brown LED”:

Light

Light

Rather than using the wires that came with the light, I simply unplugged the existing wires from the old light, and plugged in to the new one. But the light didn’t work; it turned out that I needed to reverse the wires; so I guess the original was hooked up differently:

Light

But all good now:

Light

An easy fix.

Moved toilet paper holder in half bath

I’m sure most people are super-excited by minor modifications to our motorhome like this… and what’s more thrilling than toilet paper?!

But fellow owners of our coach (e.g. in the Tiffin Allegro Bus 2016-2018 Owners group on Facebook) might find it useful. For them, we have a 2017 Tiffin Allegro Bus 40SP.

The toilet paper holder used to be next to the door, but was kinda in the way there. I tried raising it up, but that didn’t help much:

Toilet paper holder

So we decided to move it to under the corner cabinet. Here’s the mount, screwed into the cabinet:

Toilet paper holder

The toilet paper holder attached to the mount:

Toilet paper holder

The final result, along with a rechargeable motion light and replaced soap dispenser and faucet:

Toilet paper holder

Much better; still easily reachable, without getting in the way.

AC replacements

Our front and mid AC units were having issues for some time — mostly not getting cold, and sometimes refusing to come on at all. We got a few techs to look at them, without any conclusive results or solutions.

While staying at Thousand Trails Orlando, we got Charles Sutton of CS Mobile RV Repair LLC to take a look, and he determined that the compressors on both were shot, and we needed to replace them. An unpleasantly large expense, but he handled it very professionally.

Here he is lugging the very heavy AC unit up to the roof (and I appreciate the padding on the ladder to protect our paint):

Carrying new AC up to roof

The offending part:

Failed part

Inside the old AC unit, partially disassembled:

Inside AC unit

It is nice to have reliably working AC units now.

Mirror head replacement

Back in 2022 a truck clipped the driver-side mirror on our motorhome, smashing the mirror glass. I replaced the mirror glass, which made the mirror usable again, but unfortunately the motor that allows adjusting the position would only work three of the four directions, so I’d have to manually push the mirror if it drifted out of position (which seemed to happen regularly).

We were going to get it replaced when doing the annual service, but the pandemic supply chain issues made the part unavailable at the time.

It wasn’t a super urgent issue, so we put it on the back burner, but it continued to annoy us. Eventually after much research I determined that one could buy a replacement head for the mirror, which (in theory) could be easily plug-and-play replaced. The part is manufactured by Valvac, and the part number is 719853, “Euromax-XL Replacement Head w/Camera, Lighted, Left Side, Chrome”.

I purchased this part:

Mirror box

The new mirror head:

New mirror head

New mirror head

It looked like an easy job, but we were about to be in Red Bay, so I got a mobile tech to look at replacing it for me. Good thing I didn’t try it myself, as it was too hard for that tech; he couldn’t fish the wires out of the mirror arm.

So later while at Thousand Trails Orlando I got a local RV tech, Charles Sutton of CS Mobile RV Repair LLC, to have a go at it. He also had lots of difficulty with it, but eventually managed it (and was very generous in not charging extra for it, too; I’d highly recommend him for any RV services!).

Here’s the old head removed:

Old head removed

He had to remove a bunch of excess insulation in the generator compartment to access the wires to get enough slack to reach the plugs:

Removed insulation to access bolts

Finally able to reach the plugs:

Wires

The replaced mirror head:

Replaced mirror head

So nice to have that working again. And if we ever need to replace it again, it should be a much easier job next time.

Compact garbage bin fits next to toilet

There isn’t a lot of room in the rear and mid bathrooms of our coach, so we looked for a compact garbage bin that would fit next to the toilet.

We found one on Amazon (but it isn’t available there anymore; there are similar ones if you search):

Garbage bin

It has a handle to remove the inner bin:

Garbage bin

And a built-in toilet brush:

Garbage bin

A compact solution for a small space.

Using magnets to hold a cupboard door out of the way

Under the galley/kitchen sink in our coach is a cupboard with a large pull-out drawer, where amongst other things we store our garbage bag, held open with clips. (We used to use a couple of bins there, but a single large bag is more convenient).

That’s all very good, but the right-hand cupboard door swings wide, and gets in the way when standing in front of the dishwasher (to the right of this cupboard):

Cupboard doors and drawer

To solve that, I added a magnet to the drawer, held on by a Command Strip:

Magnet held on by Command Strip

An opposite polarity magnet is stuck on to the cupboard door by a glue dot (I originally used a glue dot for both, but it didn’t stay stuck to the wood of the drawer):

Magnet held on by glue dot

The two magnets are positioned so that they join to hold the door against the drawer:

Magnets joined to hold the door

Much better:

Door held against the drawer

I also have another magnet further back on the drawer:

Another magnet further back

Which holds the door in place when the drawer is fully extended:

Drawer fully extended

A small thing, but a nice improvement.

Using a sewer tote tank and macerator pump to dump waste tanks from the back of our truck again

I previously posted about using a sewer tote and macerator pump to empty our waste tanks. Here’s another example of doing this, with a variation to cope with parking in front of our coach.

I dumped when our gray and black waste tanks reached 50%; we could have been conservative and made it the week with that space, but it was nice not to need to do so:

50% gray and black tanks

The wet bay, with the power for the macerator hooked up, along with the sewer pipe:

Wet bay

The macerator pump, hooked up to a sewer hose and a garden hose dedicated to this purpose:

Macerator pump

When parked in front of the coach, it’s a bit longer to get from the wet bay to the truck:

Hoses

The hose into the tote in the back of the (pollen-y) truck:

Hose into tote

Filling the tote:

Filling tote

8% gray and 13% black after the first dump; I fully emptied them the day before we departed, which took another two dumps (with the liquids added after the first dump):

8% gray and 13% black after first dump

Dumping from the truck at the dump station:

Dumping at dump station

The tote in the back of the truck while dumping:

Tote in the back of the truck while dumping

It’s nice to have this option when we don’t have a sewer hookup.

Loose mudguard above rear wheels

I noticed that a mudguard panel above the driver-side rear wheels was loose, falling down onto the tire. Not ideal. It looked like it was only held up by one bolt, buried in foam insulation, which had come loose. So I reattached it. I also got some more bolts to better attach it, though I haven’t bothered to do that yet, since that one bolt seems sufficient. But I’ll keep an eye on it.

Mudguard above rear wheel

Bolt

Bolt

Override Tecma macerating toilet controller with this one weird trick

Last year I posted about replacing the controller in our Tecma macerating toilet. I concluded the post saying that it failed again even after replacing the controller, and I suspected the pump might be the fault.

To test this, I rearranged the wires, so the power wire to the toilet and the pump wire could be reached at the back of the toilet without having to dismount it again. Conveniently, they both have the same style plug, so it is possible to connect the pump directly to the power supply, bypassing the controller, so it runs continuously — obviously only briefly, before disconnecting again. That was enough to get the pump moving again. It has been working flawlessly since then. But if it were to ever stop again, I can easily repeat that process.

Toilet

Toilet

Toilet wires