In RVs the toilets deposit into a holding tank affectionately called the black tank. Nuff said.
There are two types of RV toilets, one that has a foot pedal to open the trap door and flush it with water, and the other has an electric push button that does everything electrically. By the way, the electrically flushed toilets typically have a macerator pump (grinder) to aid in decomposition of waste in the black tank between dumping. (I hope you are not reading this over breakfast 😀)
This all began when I went to flush the electric toilet and it emptied the bowl but did not refill with water. Hmmm, that's unusual. This thing actually has an electronic control circuit in it to make sure it all works in the correct sequence and always has enough water to "clear" it out.
Since the bowl did empty, the first part of the cycle, but did not refill with water, the second part of the cycle, logic says either we have no water, or the control module is freaking out. A quick check of the sink confirmed we had water so I ruled that out.
My first step in resolving problems is always to turn to Google. There is virtually nothing that can happen to me that hasn't already happened to someone else, usually hundreds of "someone elses".
Sure enough there are reports of a little 1/2 inch screen in the water line picking up debris and halting water flow. Bingo, this must be the issue.
So I began the tedious task of removing the 4 hidden bolts that hold the toilet to the floor. Of course someone at the manufacturer decided these should not have typical bolt or screw heads, rather they would somehow be better with allen heads on them. In case you are not familiar with the term, an allen wrench is the little L shaped, octoganal assembly wrench that comes with the huge bookcase you buy from Walmart that comes in a box the size of a cerial box and notes on the outside "some assembly required" 😀 It usually includes and allen wrench.
After 30 minutes of turning each of the 4 screws a quarter of a turn at a time, I was finally ready to pull it away from the wall and find this little screen that had caused me all this trouble.
Now you have to realize that behind and under the toilet are a mass of hoses and wires. They seem to make everything so complicated and try to squeeze it all into the smallest space possible. I assume that someday in the future, when humans are extinct, aliens will find our planet and immediately assume we must have been a microscopic race because we crammed everything into such small spaces. But then I digress.
As I started perusing through the hoses and wires looking for the elusive screen, I found a mysterious electrical connection which was connected to nothing. Further searching uncovered what looked like it's mate.
Ok, so let's be real here. There is no possible way this could be the fix, and how would it have become disconnected with everything packed in the space so tightly. But I had to connect it and try.
Believe it or not, it worked!
I can only suspect that it had not been fully connected when originally installed at the factory and simply took this long to come apart. Or perhaps my alien theory was reversed and the aliens are actually a micro race and have a mission to disconnect connections in random small places to frustrate humans. Hmmm 👽.
Anyway, it works and has continued to work since. Just when you think you have this logic thing down pat you discover some times logic doesn't hold up and illogical things happen. 😟
The next installation in our continuing saga will be the the mysterious disconnecting sink drain.
Thanks for reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment