Vacu-Flush Service Time

[egaito]

OK, I shouldn't have said a word in that thread last week about how reliable my vacu-flush has been....yes, it heard me, and now wants some attention.

I've lost the seal in the bowl, which I've read isn't all that hard to fix, but not that I'm faced with it, I'm more interested in details....

Is there a particularly good (cost effective) source of parts?

How long did the job take?

Any tips to make it easier (or cleaner!)?

Thanks,

 

[Boss Lady]

You can get the details right off sealand's website. They have PDF's for each model toilet with exploded parts diagrams.

There have been some good deals on ebay for vacuflush rebuild kits.

Which model toilet do you have?

I would check to make sure that you don't have some foriegn material under the lip of the rubber seal. That happened to me the other day on my other boat. Use a regular bristle brush and step on the pedal and run it around a few times and see if that clears the problem. Mine is three years old and no major problems.

If you have to take it apart, use a spray bottle full of clorox, rubber gloves, and eye protection, spray everything down and scrub well with the toilet brush, step on the pedal and spray/scrub there, rinse well. Turn off the water and power to the pump and toilet, and you are ready to disassemble it. Just a few bolts hold one together.

 

[Liquid Asset]

When I did it, I ordered parts from an outfit in New York. I will see if I can find their website. I did the entire toilet and all of the parts came in a kit. they were the best prices I could find.

 

[Liquid Asset]

Here it is

http://www.sealandsanitation.com/

These guys were very helpful. They found me a 32v motor, which is next to impossible.

 

[egaito]

Hmm, looking at the site, it's either a 500 or a 1000 series. Looks like there are only a couple of different kits though....

I've run into the debris issue before, and have tried cleaning the rim several time already, so I think I'm out of luck on that one this time.

I think I'm going to do a bleach "soak" in the bowl before I work on it, letting the solution go into the flush chamber for awhile.

Is it a good idea to change the duck-bill valves at the same time or do they generally last longer?

 

[Boss Lady]

That depends on whether you want to do some preventative maintenance or not. If you have the time and depending on the age, it might be good to go ahead and change them. If you want to throw Murphy a curve ball, change them now. Then you know exactly what you have. If you put it off until you have a problem, then just keep a bucket handy, because it will surely fail in the middle of the night.

 

[Liquid Asset]

My opinion is that if you have lost the bowl seal, your duckbill valves are not far behind if they are not already leaking. From what I understand, they are the most common failure and that is why every west marine I have been in has htem in stock.

My personal opinion is that it is easy to rebuild the entire system. I did both of mine in a day and i woudl go ahead and replace them. For the few hundred $$$ that it cost, it will be true reliability. Get it done and then you wont have to worry about it agian for a while, the piece of mind will be worth it, because ti will break again when you really got to go!

 

[Paul45c]

For those times when even the reliable Vacuflush sys. goes down (it's only been once for my boat -- 4 yrs. now and counting), I keep a small portapotty in the storage underneath one of my berths. Having the system break when on a trip could really ruin the trip.

 

[Pascal]

the most common failure on a VF is the duckbill valves and even if they leak you're not going to be dead in the water... there should always be enough suction to at least flush, even if you have to manually turn off the pump.

the pump is nearly bullet proof... the bowl seal shoudl not prevent you from using the system either...

my expererience has been that the DB give you plenty of warning before failing; 5 to 7 years seem to be their average life expectancy so if you're there, you may as well do it. it's a 5 minute job anyway (assuming the pump is accessible...)

 

[Paul45c]

Pascal, your 53my has a Vacuflush, and I'm assuming it didn't come that way from the factory, correct? Two questions, if you will:

1) was the modification difficult?
2) does one vacuum pump and pressure tank work for all 3 of your heads?

Just curious.

 

[Pascal]

the VFs were installed about 9 or 10 years ago by a previous owner... not sure how difficult it was, it's a fairly simple system after all, the problem must have been to route hoses from the back to the bow since originally the boat had individual holding tanks.

the forward head has it's own vac tank and pump, under the fwd cabin floor.
the other 2 heads share a vad pump installed in the stbd ER. The aft head has the vac tank under the cabinetry in the aft cabin, the vip head has the tank vertical at the back of the stbd ER. both waste line merge with a Y right before the vac pump.

it works fine, even though they did stretch sealand guidelines on hose run lengths... it's a long run from the vac tank, almost near the stern, to the pump in the ER...

ideally, for redundancy, it's best to have separate pumps for each head. when they share a pump, you need to add an inline duck bill valve between each vac tank and the Y before the pump.

 

[egaito]

They also now have a "compact" vacuum tank. I've seen this on some newer Sea Rays and Rinkers. Seems to work fine, but I would guess the run is a bit shorter than the bigger tank.

 

[Paul45c]

the VFs were installed about 9 or 10 years ago by a previous owner... not sure how difficult it was, it's a fairly simple system after all, the problem must have been to route hoses from the back to the bow since originally the boat had individual holding tanks.

I'll bet that's a heck of a run.

the forward head has it's own vac tank and pump, under the fwd cabin floor.
the other 2 heads share a vad pump installed in the stbd ER. The aft head has the vac tank under the cabinetry in the aft cabin, the vip head has the tank vertical at the back of the stbd ER. both waste line merge with a Y right before the vac pump.

OK, so if I understand it correctly, each head has its own vac tank, but 2 of them share one vac pump.

ideally, for redundancy, it's best to have separate pumps for each head. when they share a pump, you need to add an inline duck bill valve between each vac tank and the Y before the pump.

Yep, and from what Ed was saying following yours, the smaller size new vac tanks would make that easier still. It's certainly no big deal to fit in a vac pump for each head, given how small they are. Thanks for the feedback, Pascal and Ed.

 

[bobk]

I have one that leaks slowly but acts like the return spring needs a boos. If I lift the pedal for a second, the seal is fine.

Bob

 

[dwaynec]

Whenever my VF start acting like the return spring needs a boost, I just take a little vaseline and rub it on the underside of the seal. That seems to do the trick.