Black water valve hole repair

[gklott]

During our October western states trip, I was flushing tanks early in the morning before departing the KOA. I pulled the handle, and black water drained as normal. HOWEVER, some black water came out around where you pull the handle. We had to clean that up.

Something knocked a hole in the black water valve section that sticks out. See attached. This is the “box” where the valve plate retracts when you pull out the handle. Otherwise, the valve seemed to function properly.

We were on day 5 of our trip, and we wanted to avoid replacing the entire valve system. We turned to JB WaterWeld, a two part epoxy putty stick.

See attached images for the repair described below. Mary did all the repair work.

First, after a thorough cleaning, she put a piece of rigid plastic over the hole and used WaterWeld around the edges to seal it in place. The plastic keeps putty out of the valve retraction box.

Second, she fully covered the hole. This patch might have been enough.

Third, she used the remaining epoxy putty stick to encase the entire valve retraction box: front, back, top, and bottom. We wanted to seal any other cracks that we may have missed.

Result: The repair is solid (maybe stronger than before) and water tight. The valve works well as before. This allowed us to continue dumping the black tank as we traveled. Repair cost = $7.00. This repair may outlast the rest of the valve.

73/gus

[cpaharley2008]

"Necessity, the mother of invention"......

[MVA]

Nice job Mary!

Glad you guys were able to fix a road hazard damage.

[Mary F]

Thanks for this, Gus & Mary, We had a similar injury during our summer travels but none of our fixes worked nearly this well. Will try the JB... or maybe just replace the whole entire thing. (sigh)

[Gasguy]

Wow, nice job. A couple coats of black spray paint & you might not even know it was there unless you were looking for it. Might have to get some of that stuff for my on the road fixit kit.