Replacing toilet in Vista 30W

[micd]

I talked to Camping World and the lady thought they would take it back. I spent some time crawling all over the toilets in the toilet section. The Sealand Traveler 500 has the water inlet on the side near the foot pedal which will facilitate following their winterization instructions without pulling it from the floor. And it has a very narrow bottom base which is what we need. Unfortunately Camping World doesn't carry it locally so I will have to order it. I'm going to try and find a picture of the back and sides to make sure the hook ups will work for us as I've now learned that the high and low profiles have different locations for the hook ups. Why the on-line specs. don't seem to have this information is beyond me. I'm sure lots of people need to verify the hook up location before replacing a toilet.

I think were not going with the Aqua Magic V due to it not having a tube from the bowl right into the ring/tank area. It does have the possibility of splash back into the toilet under-housing itself as did our Aqua Magic IV. I checked our old one and we did have that happening even though we didn't know it as it is contained in there but still, not a nice thing to have happening.

Good luck with your install!
Michelle

[Floridafran]

Steve,

Thanks for the heads up about the seat. We would have done what you did. Installed the toilet first, then tried to do the seat. Ditto for the info on the elbow. I knew you said you needed one, but I just assumed it was something we could get at Lowe's or Ace Hardware. Since we have to go right by our dealer on the way to get the RV we can stop in there and hope they have what we need.

Michelle,

I hope that Sealand unit will work for you. I know they have a chart on the Thetford website that shows what Thetfords you can replace an A. M. IV with. I wonder if Sealand has something similar on their site. If so, it could save you some detective work. If not, you might want to call Sealand and talk to someone. I found the young man I spoke with at Thetford to be very knowledgeable and helpful so hopefully you'd have the same kind of experience with the Sealand folks.

Thanks for the good luck wishes.

I'll be sure to post how this goes because I know of some other Vista 30W owners who want to do this.

Fran

[Floridafran]

Hi all,

It's in! The Style II is in place and passed the Tom test.

Thank you to everyone who offered advice and help. Special thanks to Steve/taboky for his excellent advice which saved us a couple of trips for parts.

To our surprise and delight, we were able to install the new toilet without having to move or rotate the pipe assembly or flange. We were able to do this by doing 2 things:

First, Tom elongated the hole in the platform in order to move the incoming water pipe closer to the rear wall. (We covered the original hole with a piece cut from a self-stick vinyl tile that we bought when we went to Lowe's to get the new toilet seat. As per Steve's advice, we installed the seat, then the toilet. It's pretty much impossible to see the patch on the floor.)

Second, Tom shortened the horizontal bit of pipe that goes from the white plastic vacuum breaker chamber at the top of the incoming water line. Before it actually stuck out quite a bit from the back.

Let me say here that I realize that this is not a technical or detailed explanation. I just wanted to let you know that, in some instances, this can be done. And, if you're at all handy, you can do it yourself.

If anyone wants to try it, I'll be glad to get more detailed.

I'll post a couple of photos as soon as I read how to do it.

Thanks again.

Fran

[taboky]

Glad to hear Fran. A seat on a bucket would be better than the Aqua Magic V.

[Floridafran]

"Glad to hear Fran. A seat on a bucket would be better than the Aqua Magic V. "

Isn't that the truth!

As I write this, Tom is typing up instructions for another couple at the rv.net forum who want to have this done before they leave on August 4th for a 2 months trip. We're including both your suggestions - seat and elbow fitting - plus a couple of things we learned specific to the 30W (which they also have).

Now to get on with the other modifications we want to finish before we leave at the end of August. Just have 5 weeks from today to get it all done. Yikes!