The Thetford toilet: a virtual tour and fixing it for good

Hey Dave,

I was doing a little thinking about your escaping TP. How about "filling the gap" with some sort of solvent resistant rubber gasket or weather striping material. I envision wrapping the rubber strip around the outside of the wire basket. The material could be attached to the basket using mechanical fasteners and you could effectively offset the gasket to make the basket longer. Then when you sit the top of the toilet on top of the basket it would squish the gasket and make the seal and keep the basket from bouncing around and keep your TP inside the basket.

I haven't experienced the difficulties you mention and I bet it's because I dump the toilet before transit and then add 1-2 gal with chemical which may dissolve any residual waste. Also I always fill the toilet to the top before dumping to facilitate waste removal. I could certainly see if you were boonedocking that you need to travel with a full toilet, and we should be able to and it looks like you are just about there.

let me know what you think of my idea.
thanks
jason

[ShrimpBurrito]

Originally Posted by greentrail

I was doing a little thinking about your escaping TP. How about "filling the gap" with some sort of solvent resistant rubber gasket or weather striping material. I envision wrapping the rubber strip around the outside of the wire basket. The material could be attached to the basket using mechanical fasteners and you could effectively offset the gasket to make the basket longer. Then when you sit the top of the toilet on top of the basket it would squish the gasket and make the seal and keep the basket from bouncing around and keep your TP inside the basket.

Jason,

I had thought of that idea as well, as I think that would produce the best seal, but once I saw that I needed to fill a gap that is at least 1" thick, and even a little more to make it fit snug, I shifted to the weight idea. I know for certain that rubber, or at least the rubber like substance the seals are made of, will survive in that environment. I just don't know where I can get a strip of 1" x 1" rubber. That is pretty thick. I could layer it, I suppose, but then you have to figure out how to stick them together. Adhesives are out, although I could zip tie them together....that might work. Then you have to figure out how to form a strip into a circle without wrinkling. I think it needs to be cut from a sheet.

I don't think foam weatherstripping will work, as I think the methanol in the Aqua-Kem will eat it up. Of course, if it's fails, it's not that big a deal, but that's what got me thinking of other solutions.

Dave

I was thinking something like seal on the bottom of the garage. Oh, how about solvent a flexible tubing or hose? You can get solvent resistant hose that you could slit and wrap the bottom. Anyway as for fasteners I was thinking SS screws or something like that. When I had my toilet apart I didn't think weight would work because my basket didn't have a flat bottom the bottom ring was bent so you could not get a good seal without a filler.

I had the same problem with the skirt and saw your pictures and took mine apart. I did some looking on line and saw an article from a Good neighbor Sam magazine where someone else tried to get the Vinyl Skirt and they told him he would have to pay $150 for the kit and Sam magazine put some pressure on Thedford so they now have a SKU# for just the skirt. I called Thedford and at first was told it was $200 for the kit but it was not available and I had to talk to the guy for quite awhile before he remembered the special skirt #. It was Mod. 33274 and I ordered 2 of them and it cost me $49 total to have them shipped to my house. Now that I have them and replaced the old one I wish I had only ordered 1. Very poor design, not sure how you can bend the metal (they use for weight to close the hole) to make the hole anywhere close to closing. It also restricts the opening so it probaly does hang up solid waste and paper. They must have let some first grader design this before they shipped them out and discovered they forgot to design something to close the hole. What is needed is some plastic flap with a weight that will close it when not flushed. No wonder people have a problem with the stink. I may have to look into making something myself that will work.

Thanks Dave for this valuable thread. I had just recently read it before embarking on a vacation. As "luck" would have it, when I arrived, the wire basket had let me down and resulted in waste getting jammed in the pump mechanism. An hour later the entire toilet had been taken apart, flushed, and reassembled, working as good as new. Had I not read that thread I wouldn't have dared start that project while on vacation and we would have had to use the CG facilities. Thanks again!

[ThePair]

I've taken the plunge and removed the vinyl skirt--mine was replaced last year, used maybe 4 times, and back to horrible.

I intend to wax and/or Teflon spray the bowl, and hopefully that with the skirt removal will allow proper functor of the toilet.

[ShrimpBurrito]

Mark - Glad you found the thread of use!

ThePair - If you ever travel with anything in the toilet (including a fresh charge), you might consider putting a vinyl flap over the chute opening in place of the skirt, such as I did in post #33 of this thread. I just spent 5 weeks in the TM over 7,000 miles, using the toilet for a required bodily eliminations, and the flap seems to be holding up fine. No backsplash up into the bowl, either. And while I had lots of problems with waste going down the hole before I removed the skirt, it's be straight shootin' ever since I took it out. I personally have seen no need for any sort of lubricant.

Dave

[ThePair]

The only thing in the toilet for travel might be a gallon of water with some surf detergent in it (cleans & water softener in one) as per the Geo method. I don't think 1 gallon of liquid would ever be enough to splash out, especially since I don't do any off-road driving. But, I did make note of your flap idea when reading this thread previously, and made the mental decision (as I was taking out the skirt) that I would construct something similar if I found the splash to be a nuisance, using your picture as a reference

I'm very glad to hear that it's worked better for you than the stock skirt. I have teflon spray for the hitch ball; I figured a spritz couldn't hurt anything, and might prevent some "hang-ons" which were the bane of our last trip...then again, no skirt may = no issues. We'll just have to see how things go this weekend

I have a 2007 3124KB and had the same problems in the solid flushing. After cleaning the toilet out 3 times on a 7500 mile 42 day trip I replaced the toilet with a Thetford foot flush. To dry camp we use a 30 gallon portable tank so I have to make sure we are close to a dump station if we camp more than a week.

[ThePair]

Follow-up: Solids are still a major hassle even without the skirt. As in, solid waste never makes it down on its own. I intend to take apart the Thetford and see if there's another issue at play here.