August 12th - 19th, 2022 - Work on Homer’s Broken Sewer Fitting and New Ignition Switch

Here are two pictures of the broken gray water tank drainpipe. At the top of the picture you can see the break in the pipe.

A close-up view.

How did this happen? Upon inspecting the sewer drain area I found fresh grass and mud between the metal strap holding the sewer pipe and the sewer pipe itself.  Here is a picture after I pulled the grass out.

The sewer drainpipes hang low behind the back wheels. Clearly someone backed into a grassy area and the drainpipe dug into the dirt. This contact put pressure on the smaller pipe, which connects the gray water tank to the outlet pipe, causing the smaller pipe to break. Luckily this small pipe broke and not the fittings to either tank. 

I know that I did not cause this damage because the last time we used Homer was on our campout in Canton, Missouri, in June. The RV site there was on concrete. I dumped there on concrete, no issue. We drove home and parked Homer on our concrete driveway for a couple of days until he went into the shop for speedometer and parking brake repairs. The shop had possession of Homer for over three weeks waiting on parts. He was parked behind the shop throughout this time. Most of the area behind the shop is gravel but there is a grassy hill in the back. I believe that at some point someone backed Homer into the grass to turn him around and that is how this happened. I picked him up and we headed North up the Interstate headed to a campground in Michigan. When I arrived I dumped at their concrete dump station and that is when I discovered the broken pipe as water came gushing out at me when I pulled the valve. At least it was gray water and not black tank (commode) water. Homer had never been near grass while in my possession this entire summer.

I'm not upset with the shop. Stuff happens. I did tell the owner about it to make sure they are more careful in the future with Homer and other motorhomes with low-hanging sewer outlets. If the main line to the black tank had broken at the tank, or the fitting had broken at the gray tank, it could have cost thousands of dollars to fix and many months of getting a new tank made, etc. We were lucky.

New Pipe and Fittings:

I repaired the broken pipe myself. The only issue was that RVs use ABS plastic pipe, not PVC plastic pipe like that used in homes. No one carries this type of pipe in Perryville. On our trip to pick up the lawn mower from the repair shop in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which is a big town, we searched around for ABS pipe and fittings. Menards had the pipe. I picked up a piece of pipe but it struck me as extremely thin and cheap. I took a piece of it to the fittings bins. The pipe just flopped on a fitting, not a tight fit for gluing. No amount of glue would fill this gap.  We left Menards and tried to find better pipe at Lowes and at a plumbing supply house. Neither had the pipe. In desperation we went back to Menards and purchased a piece of the cheap pipe and glue hoping I would think of something to make it work. 

When I got home I was convinced that the Menards pipe was not going to work. I got online and purchased a one-foot piece of inch and a half ABS pipe from Amazon. (One foot cost as much as the four-foot-long piece I got from Menards.) The Amazon pipe arrived Wednesday and it it fit perfectly in the fitting. Here is a picture of the two pipes side by side. You can see the different in the thickness of the pipes. You can also see that the thicker pipe on the left is taller than the Menards pipe on the right.

Here are pictures with a tape measure showing the difference in outside circumference. The Menards junk pipe is a full one-eighth less in diameter.

I had made my mind up not to use the Menards pipe no matter what. If the Amazon pipe had not measured up I would have used a piece of PVC pipe even though that does not meet residential code.

Fixing the pipe:

Last Friday was a cool day so at 8:00 a.m. I started working on removing the piece of pipe inside the elbow. This was the hardest part of the project. When ABS pipes are glued together the pieces are actually melted to each other. This makes for a seal that won’t break loose. This was proven by the fact that the pipe broke below the fitting rather than the joint coming apart. The remaining broken gray water pipe was right in the way where I needed to work to get the broken piece out of the fitting. I didn’t want to cut the drainpipe back until I had the new pipe ready to install. 

I started getting the piece of pipe out of the fitting by using a hack saw blade to cut grooves into the broken pipe which was still in the fitting. I had to be careful not to cut into the fitting itself. I cut the pipe in about six places as best I could. Because of the curve of the fitting I could not get the blade in far enough to cut all the way through the pipe.  In an attempt to break a small piece of pipe off at a time, I held a small screwdriver in place between the pipe and the fitting. I gently tapped it with a hammer and gently pried between the pipe and fitting.  Small pieces chipped off from the outer half of the pipe where I had cut the grooves. 

After getting what pieces I could off with this method, I then got my Dremel tool out to grind off the rest with a grinding stone. Fortunately, I have a flexible shaft for the Demel tool. This was absolutely necessary for this project because I could not get the tool in place due to the broken drainpipe hanging in the way. I used a small stone wheel in the flex shaft and slowly ground away at the broken pipe inside the fitting. I constantly checked my work to be sure I was not cutting into the fitting itself. I could see progress on one half of the fitting but had to rely on my finger feeling the inside of the fitting for any ridge from the old pipe on the blind side. As I was getting close to getting the old pipe fragments ground out, I cut an inch long piece of PVC pipe to insert into the fitting to check for fit. After more careful grinding, it slid into the elbow. Mission accomplished. 

The new pipe from Amazon arrived on Wednesday. Today I cut off the pipe to remove the broken piece. to have a straight edge to attach to a coupler. I then cut a piece of the new pipe to span between the elbow and the new coupler to the old pipe. Here is a picture of the repair. I was able to pry the pipes apart to make this new connection but it was tricky to get things lined up and in place because the glue dries very quickly. Here is a picture of the repaired pipe.

As the glue was setting up I worked on refastening the drainpipe to its support. Here is a picture of the area of the pipe that connects to the 2 x 4 support above with pipe strap.

A 2 x 4 screwed in from the floor above drops down to support the sewage pipe. The 2 x 4 had been loose and sometime in the past I had added an "L" bracket to support it. With the recent damage the 2 x 4 was once again loose. Here is the area where the 2 x 4 attaches to the floor above. You can see the previous bracket I installed.

I wanted to somehow brace the 2 x 4 but I was afraid to screw into the floor not knowing what is above. I think this area is under the bathtub or the kitchen sink, but I'm not sure. I decided to use contact cement to glue an additional block to the floor to support the 2 x 4 coming down. I also used a bracket to attach the block to the 2 x 4 for more strength. Here is a picture of what I did.

This block with the new bracket did add some stability to the 2 x 4 brace hanging down. Lastly, I reattached the black tank rinse hose. Here is a picture of everything completed.

Hopefully I will never have to deal with this problem again.

Ignition Switch:

There have been some issues with the ignition switch not operating properly. It had been getting worse for a couple of years and was really bad on our last trip. I had it replaced this week. The shop said the switch was totally shot.  The old switch was black and the new switch is silver. Pretty snazzy. 

The only bad part about this repair is that the ignition key and door lock key are different. We now have to carry two keys. This isn't that big of a deal because I normally just use the fob to lock and unlock the doors.

Homer is now ready for another adventure next week - a club campout in Springfield, Illinois. He will get packed up tomorrow.