More on the toilet project

Today, we devoted ourselves to removing the old toilet. The old unit was a Mansfield Traveler, a head that was widely used in Silvertons, Luhrs among other boats and in lots of RVs the late 70s and early 80s.  This was before no-discharge zones so manufacturers could get away with the simple design the "Traveler" offered. The toilet was mounted on a 9-gallon holding tank.  To flush, you pressed a pedal on the side of the toilet.  That opened a clam shell-like valve in the toilet and released fresh water from the on-board supply to flush the waste down  into he holding tank. The clam shell valve was supposed to be air tight, so gas from the waste stored directly below wouldn't find its way out. At discharge time, you either used a pump out facility or you actuated a macerator mounted below the floor and that pumped the shredded waste overboard.

Obviously, that left a lot to be desired and that's why we undertook this project now.

Here's the old toilet in place (which was fairly easy to remove in one piece) and then a shot of the area where the head had been mounted.

Before heading to the dumpster, we disassembled the old head because we need the old holding tank to use as a base for the new toilet. The old holding tank-base won't be used to store waste. It will simply be a fiberglass box used to raise the new head to the proper height.

The bowl portion of the old head came off easily but the assembly below that wasn't so accommodating. So, we took it home for a closer inspection.

These bolts held the mounting flange under the bowl to the tank.  They refused to come out. The nut and bolt would simply turn together.

We decided that the only way to remove them was to cut them off with our Dremel.  That required a trip to Lowes to buy some Dremel Reinforced cut-off blades.  Those blades went  through these old plated brass bolts and nuts like butter, although we ended up cutting down through the top of the bolt and then the nut, splitting them in half. In an hour, we had them out.

Then we pried the gasket loose, leaving us with the old holding tank that really needed to be cleaned. Ugh! Thirty years of crap!

Once the old tank base was clean, we test fitted the new Jabsco Silent Flush head to the old holding tank, which would now be its mounting base.  What a surprise, it fit!  In fact, it appears that all these heads have the same 7-1/4" mounting base. Learned something again.

We'll have to find a way to mount the new head on the base, perhaps using toggle bolts of some kind.  Have to give that some thought.

Removing the old head and putting in a new one is to us, a complicated project and one that we can only really work on over the weekends. During the week, we'll make drawings and we have included one here. Sure, it's crude but sketches like this help us figure out what parts we need and in what sequence things have to be done.  They also helps Frances understand what's going on and that's necessary because she is fully involved in anything that we undertake on this old boat.

Sometimes Frances will say to me, "Why are you doing it that way?" and you know, more often than not, that's a very good question..