brunnhilde's cassette toilet - part 14

Saved by the bell. My fate would have it such that the toilet posts will not end at 13. Sometimes it may be better to steer safe of the unlucky numbers. The history of classical music has the curse of the ninth and there are many twentieth century great composers that fallen fate to the curse. For me avoiding a serial posts ending in the thirteen is only prudent.


Thinking that the cassette conversion project is complete, I kicked back and did some casual reading. Reading up on the camping accessories on a German vendor's website. I have seen the vent kits for used with cassette toilets. There are many different kinds depends on the model you have. I was trying to figure out which one and initially the one attaches to the pour spout of the waste water tank seems what would be for mine.

I than when to Thetford Europe site and see what the optional kit for my toilet looks like. Mine is C402-C.
so what dose the "outside vent" kit looks like?

They show  this one that attached to the upper part of the caddy cavity. I immediately try to locate the port. Instead of going to check the toilet I decided it is easier just refer to the service manual.

The service manual would prove the one shown on Thetford page for the C400 series is incorrect. The kit for mine requires attaching the vent hose to this round port

 i had been wondering what this round thing is

 so far so good. I have the round thingy

Hold on to your horses. I need to check a few more thing to be sure hooking up the hose will do what I think it would. I am not one like to make assumptions if I can check out the facts. I want to see if the waste water cassette on mine has the built in vent mechanism. Just because the cassette looks identical to the one use in the toilet came with the vent kit does not mean it must. It is very common in product design that a common assembly is use but with certain feature stripped off for the one that is sold without the feature. To do this I have to open the toilet cassette. I actually happy to do this sooner than later to get familiar with it as eventually it will need to be serviced.

Opening it is extremely easy. This whole toilet is very well design and has enjoyed many refinement from previous generations. BTW, I believe Thetford was a Dutch company before it is now a global company with head quarter in the US. The Bravura that Airstream had Westfalia installed for the NAFTA James Cook is an America design.

 the level sensing float with 2 magnets that engages reed switches to show the tank level

here on the bottom is the vent port; i reach inside the tank and found the spring loaded port flap. The port flap only opens when the cassette is inserted into the toilet cavity; i just verify the cassette vent mechanism is functional

To connect the Brunnhilde's old vent hose to the vent port, I have to cut a 2.5 inch hole on the subfloor with the toilet in place and that imposes a bit of challenge. I have to remove the p-trap for the floor drain to make room for my hand drill.

more caulking in the pipe thread by the professional i have to clean out

Once I know that I would need a ABS elbow I went to Home Depot. It was near closing and is my favorite time as there are few customers getting into the way. I took the opportunity to research the things I may be able to use for Brunnhilde's discharge pipe slimfast project.

first are the swimming pool vacuum hoses - I check to see what fitting will slip right into the ID or onto OD of the hose; this is the 1.5 inch Dia

this is the 1.25 inch Dia - both are very spendy at about $3.5/ft

also check out the water pressure regulator i long wanted to install for the house - my water pressure at home is a whopping 100 psi

oh, this is the identical air vent for the inside drains if i ever need to replace them

here is the good length of 1.5" ABS  pipe from the grey water tank i can make the cut and still have generous length to experiment with different designs before running out of length to glue

so the white outer PVC pipe is just the storage holder for the retractable dump hose

 one of the two hangers I would reuse

 the other hanger

i found these PVC unions but they require an o-ring for seal - one is 1.5" and the other 1.25"

 if i were to use this i have to devise a way to keep the o-ring from falling off

one idea is to buy one more union and use the collar of the other and make it into a cap

 with the elbow i finished installing the vent hose; look at all that extra storage space

you never know what you may find doing renovation - pulling out a wine box in Brunnhilde's wine cellar i found this vintage bottle of spanish wine

p.s I also realized that I didn't need to install the 5A fuse for the toilet. The toilet already has one hidden in a very neat place which I totally forgot.

Still have some time I want to check to see if there is the looming black death under the engine's injector cover. This is something I wanted to but dread to do. Black death is a common problem with this series of Mercedes Sprinters. On the unlucky engines the injector seat develop a leak allowing high pressure diesel to escape and the diesel pools around the injector cavity. The diesel is baked into a rock hard black solid from the high engine temperature.

Removing the cover turned out to be quite easy. As can be expected with a German vehicle there is just enough room to slide the cover out and you have to be very careful least you scrape off the foam gasket.

When I saw the clean appearance I sign a huge relief. Just to be sure I examined all five injector cavities  using a mirror and they all are as clean as the day she rolled off the factory.

brunnhilde is free from any sign of black death

only the immediate area around this breather tube thingy has some trace of oil residue - probably from the escape vapour

I attribute Brunnhilde's clean bill of heath because of the series of post did not end in 13. Call me superstitious.