Drain Tube and Toliet Flange are lifted

[Stephene1219]

I just finished a 4 month trip across Canada and the west cost of US and the TM was great. My toilet has always been lose sine I bought it and I figured I would fix it when I got back. On the trip in got loser and loser and began to rock a little. About a week ago I set up for the night and the Toilet just rocked back and forth. Getting out a flashlight I could see that the drainpipe side closest to the tube was sticking up about 1/2". Since I did not have internet, I used the instructions in the Tedford pamphlet to remove the toilet. Sure, enough the drainpipe is raised off the floor by 1/2" on the tube side. Tried pushing it back down but it would not budge. The last week of the trip was kind of interesting. Anyone ever heard of this problem or may have an idea of what would cause this?

I did not hit anything or run over anything.

[Bill]

If I understand correctly, once you have removed the toilet, you can see that the sewer pipe below the toilet - the black 3-inch pipe that drops down below the floor - is poking up above the floor? And maybe the flange is risen up with it?

Is there anything in this thread that helps?

https://www.trailmanorowners.com/for...ead.php?t=5889

In particular, one of the final pictures shows the round black flange that should be screwed down tight against the floor, with the top end of the black sewer pipe located in the center of it. In the picture above it, (toilet upside down), you can see the toilet outlet with the "foam donut" and sealant, which poke down into the center of the flange. The flange is screwed to the floor with the six silver-headed bolts/screws that you can see in the picture. The toilet is held down on the flange with the two brass-colored threaded machine screws that stick up out of the flange. Are you saying that this flange is raised up off the floor? Or the pipe is sticking up out of the center of the flange?

I'm not sure what the "tube" is, as opposed to the "drainpipe". Can you clue me in a little?

Bill

[Stephene1219]

Sorry, I meant drainpipe.

Yes, the flange is lifted off the floor. And one of the screws towrds the fron on the tube side broke through the flange.

[Kidkraz]

Maybe post a picture(s) so we understand a bit more of what yer trying to describe.

Are any other screws backed out/raised?
Have you tried to tighten those screws NOT broken, back down?
Can you remove the broken screw and replace it?

If in yer travels the vibrations may have caused the screws to back out or unscrew, they can be tightened and then replace the broken screw.

[rich2468]

Welcome back from your adventure, Stephene!

I've replaced my Thetford toilet, but recall my TrailManor (a 2021 model) coming from the factory with tiny shims under the front toilet feet made of what looked like stacks of a few layers of laminate (vinyl) flooring.

My wife and I found the scrap-size pieces of laminate floor mysteriously show up on the bathroom floor one trip and didn't immediately realize that they were shims....but noticed that the Thetford seemed loose during that trip. After getting home and thinking I simply needed to tighten the brass toilet flange bolts, it dawned on me that the shims had come out and needed to be reinstated under the two front feet before tightening down the toilet retaining bolts. If I didn't look at those little squares of laminate flooring under extremely bright light, I'd never have seen the faint circle indentations and would have had no clue that they were shims and just have chalked them up as construction trash from the time the camper was built.

You don't happen to recall if you found similar small squares of laminate floor do you?

What I believe happened is that you had shims, too. The shims came out and your toilet has rocked enough from being loose to cause the damage that you've seen to the flange.

I'm not sure, from your description, if the flange has come completely apart from the down pipe below or not.

If I recall correctly; it's the toilet flange's cemented connection to the down pipe, the silver screws into the floor, and expanding foam insulation which all work to hold the toilet flange in place.

I don't know if your toilet flange connection to the down pipe is still viable or not...but if it is, you may be able to clean out some of the expanding foam insulation from underneath your TrailManor (using an ice pick or something similar) and after removing your toilet use a wooden block and rubber mallet to try to slowly/gently tap the flange back down to floor level. You'd need to figure out a way to re-screw the flange screw which has lifted and replace the spray foam insulation before reinstalling the toilet.

Can you share more about what the toilet flange looks like (maybe with a picture) and if the "lost shims" scenario makes sense?

Rich and Lynn
2021 2922KB

[Bill]

Rich -

You tell a very interesting story about the shims. There should be no shims. What you are looking at is an assembly error by the Trail Manor factory. I am tempted to check my 2020 TM - also from South Dakota - to see if it also has shims. But I am from the school that says "If it ain't broke, leave it alone."

For any who are interested, here is what the shims are all about. If you turn the toilet upside down, you will see that it sits on four stubby legs, shown in one of the photos in the link above. The legs are round and hollow. The toilet came from Thetford with a couple of what are called locator disks, maybe 1/4 inch thick and the same diameter as the inside of the legs. During initial installation, what is supposed to happen is that the toilet is set on the floor, positioned carefully, and the location of the front legs is marked on the floor. Then the toilet is removed temporarily, and the disks are screwed to the floor at the marked positions. Then the toilet is reset, with the front legs slipped over the disks. When the toilet is tightened down on the sewer flange, the disks keep the toilet from rotating or sliding out of position.

What has apparently happened in your case is that the assemblers at TM didn't understand the purpose of the disks, thought they were shims of some kind, and installed some bigger shims (bigger is better, right?) to avoid the fussy positioning and marking. The big "shims" don't prevent the toilet from moving or rotating - and you experienced the result.

I believe that the problem originated at the South Dakota factory. In the past, I have known the Tennessee factory to omit the disks altogether, but I've never seen the "shims" approach. Same result either way. I bet that Stephene's problem came from lack of locator disks, allowing the toilet to move, which ripped up the sewer connection. Fixing it won't be hard, but it will be annoying. The tutorial linked above tells you how.

Bill

[rich2468]

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the follow up which helped jog my memory!

As I recall correctly now, my Trailmanor's Thetford did have a locator disk under the front leg closest to the tub. I didn't happen to see the locator disk until many moths later when I removed my Thetford and replaced it with a Sealand.

The shims (4 small squares of laminate) were only under the front toilet leg closest to the sink. Replacing them and tightening things down stopped my Thetford wobble.

Having shims under the single leg makes sense to level the Thetford, but it could be argued that using laminate floor might not be the best choice- unless periodically tightning the brass toilet flange nuts is listed as a maintenance item.

Hopefully other owners who still have a Thetford see the post and check for lost shims if they experience toilet wobble.

[Bill]

Rich -

Thanks for coming back to me.

As you point out, the purpose of shims would be for leveling. If shims are needed, it means that the floor isn't level on the frame (highly unlikely), or the toilet is not level on the floor. If the locator disc is present, but the toilet is not level on the floor, it could mean that the disc was screwed down in the wrong spot. And when the toilet was set in place, with the outlet and foam donut in the middle of the sewer flange and pipe, the leg of the toilet did not come down on the disc. Instead, it came down across the top of the disc. That would leave the toilet wobbling like a table in a cheap diner. The cheap-diner solution? Shove a matchbook or other handy shim under the leg that is high - just what you described. And when the shim gets loose and comes out, it wobbles again - just what you described.

The locator disc was under the leg closest to the tub - the shims were under the leg closest to the sink. Hey, it's a theory ...

Bill

[Stephene1219]

I have included 3 pictures.


One shows the broken flange caused by the screw

One is just a top picture of the drainpipe

One shows the back side of the drainpipe raised about 1/2". It tapers to flat on the floor towards the front Bath door side.

I have tried just pushing hard and the drainpipe does not push down at all.

I have crawled underneath, and nothing is broken. I also tried pulling down on the drainpipe and it does not move much at all.

I had shims. Mine very made from the same material as the floor but they were stapled down. However, I only had two in the back and the locator disk in front on the side closest to the sink. There was no shim in front the tube side. That could be why the toilet always rocked a little.

[Bill]

Another possibility, I guess, is that the drain pipe was cut too long, and the top end sticks up out of the floor so far that the toilet actually rests on the pipe, instead of on the floor. This would cause the toilet to rock, of course.

What year is your TM?

I'm trying to see a difference between these two photos, each showing the top of a drain pipe. One is your photo. The other is from my 2006 TM, taken from the post linked near the top of this thread.

I'm thinking - see if you agree - that the top of the drainpipe is considerably higher in your photo than in the other. You say that your toilet always rocked, right from the beginning - so the overly long pipe could have been a construction error. You also say that the pipe won't push down at all. This could be because the drain pipe is anchored in the nest of other pipes underneath the trailer, and the nest itself is firmly mounted.

And the fact that the toilet is sitting so high that the legs won't reach the floor would explain the need for shims.

I'm running out of ideas here. Over to you.

Bill