Well,
today didn’t go as planned. When I went to empty Colectiva’s tanks, nothing
would come out. I was in there, so it should, but it didn’t. We have what is
called a macerator, basically a pump that grinds and mashes the wastes in the
tanks and pushes them out a garden hose with a spigot at the end. Most people
just empty their wastes through a 3 inch diameter hose that they have to rinse
out and store. With a macerator, you never hook anything up, you just pull out
a hose, point it into the sewer receptacle, open the spigot and flip the pump
switch. No muss and no mess. 99.9% of the time, I love it. In that .01% of the
time, it becomes very complicated.
Because a
macerator shields you from the mess, it also shields you from being able to
diagnose what the problem is. I assumed there was some kind of blockage in the
tank that collects the water from Colectiva’s toilet. The mobile tech couldn’t
come out for a couple days to try to address our issue, and our tank was
already full. That meant using no water in the coach until he could get there,
so with some counsel from him, I tried some fixes.
I had
read many a tale of owners who drove their coaches for years, only to find out
that when their manufacturer built their coach, they carelessly allowed the plastic
disc created from drilling the pipe sized hole in the top of the tank to fall
into the tank, and not make sure they removed it. To the owner’s woe, that
plastic disc would later find its way to one day, for no particular reason,
block the exit from the tank. Only with considerable cost were they able to
correct for this sloppy manufacturing error. The tech suggested I could snake
some PEX water pipe down into the tank, and just move it around all over the
floor of the tank to dislodge whatever the blockage might be.
I bought
10 feet of PEX, assuming I might need 4 or 5 feet, but didn’t want to
underestimate. Well, I needed the whole 10 feet! I learned that Colectiva has
what owners consider a problem – owners expect that the pipe from the bottom of
their toilet will drop straight into the tank with no bends – bends cause
problems. In Colectiva, there is a 90 degree bend in the waste pipe about 6
inches below the toilet – now I better understand some of the problems we have
had over the last 8 years. Anyway, I managed to snake the PEX pipe though that
90 degree bend, and the next one that was inevitably required, to get down into
the actual tank itself. It took all of the 10 feet of PEX I had to be able to
scour the bottom of the tank.
Now again
past indelicate – standing over a marine toilet with an open pipe (to get the
PEX in through) is not charming. Next, PEX is basically stiff but flexible
water line – i.e. hole in the middle. When you put it into a lot of liquid and
slosh it around, guess what gets forced up through the hold in the center of
the PEX? Nuff said. I pressed my palm over the end to keep it from spurting
out. Anyway, the good news is I got the PEX down into the tank. The bad news is
the tank would still not empty.
My other
options were to disconnect everything, drive around for a bit, and see fi that
movement sloshed around things enough to allow the tanks to empty. That would be
last resort. I attempted to disconnect the hoses between the tanks and the macerator
see if they may be plugged, but they had been heavily sealed by the installer
of the macerator, so I couldn’t get them apart, which was OK sort of because
those lines contain a gallon or two of waste I would have to figure out how to
deal with. At last, I had read in one of the many sites I had researched
looking for a possible solution that possibly pouring water into the hose
coming out from the macerator might act much like priming a pump. I knew there
was already liquid in that line, so I lifted it up high in the middle, forcing
some of the liquid back toward the macerator pump. With it held in the air I
flipped the on/off switch, and I could hear a very heavy low groaning, followed
soon by the voices of angels – the normal sound of pumping out the contents of
the tanks. Apparently the extra liquid created enough seal to cause an increase
in the amount of suction, and liberated whatever blockage had been the culprit.
Yippee! Empty tanks and no service bill!
Of course
when you are on the road, it’s not just your house that can be a problem. We have
been plagued with repairs on the Saturn for the last few years. Catalytic
converter, passenger seat heater, AC repairs – each of them seems to run $1,000
to $1,500. We had been hoping to nurse the Saturn back to Vegas over the
holidays to have time to perhaps replace it and get a new vehicle set up to be
towed behind Colectiva. Well, yesterday the Check Engine light came on. Last
time that happened it was the catalytic converter and $1,500.
I knew
that even getting the light diagnosed would be $150. It occurred to me that the
light had come on very shortly after having stopped to get gas. While this has
never happened to me before, since I know that the Check Engine light deals
primarily with pollution control systems, I wonder if there might be a
connection. When I stopped at ACE Hardware to get a needed tool, I looked in
their automotive section to see if they had a fuel additive – they didn’t. So, instinctively,
I just stopped when the tank was still nearly full and put about 3 gallons of
premium fuel into the Saturn. I reasoned that maybe I had a tank of slightly
bad gas, and adding 3 gallons of premium would blend with what was in the tank,
clean it up a bit, and increase the octane in what was already there.
Well,
there was no change as we left the station and drove on. While I assumed it was
a long shot, I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. But lo and behold, about
10 miles later as I rounded one of the many sharp curves in the Ozarks, the
Check Engine light went out! And it hasn’t come back on since.
To
expensive debacles averted! I love it when things come together.
Talk to
you soon!
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