[terry]

I can’t help with your issue, but if you are traveling and have a water pump switch you should be able to just turn the off to ensure you don’t have any over flow at night.

[George]

I’d do what Bill and Janet suggested.

[Chuck & Katrina]

I started doing that but inevitably we would forget to turn the pump back off. So, we are shutting off the supply to only the toilet under we “really” need to flush it, then my wife and I do a coordinated turn-on, flush, turn-off (of the supply valve). This way all other water based operations can continue as normal.

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2000 Featherlite H3-45

2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee

Leesburg, FL

[Andrew]

Andrew:

Not only my bus, but a lot of the yachts I run have the Headhunter toilets, The valves are not that easy to access (bus or boats). So my advice would be just replace the hole valve. I have tried to rebuild them, it works for a while, but you eventually have to replace it anyway. Make sure you get a new solenoid too. There are 12 & 24 volt versions. Make sure you get the right voltage.

Chuck

[Mike]

Unless it is a different design than the Headhunter toilets I have had there is not tank as in a conventional toilet. The Headhunter has a flush valve similar in operation to the flush valves seen in public restrooms. When a flush is called for an electronic signal to a solenoid in the flush valve opens the water flow which has to be both high volume and pressure.

Water flows into the bottom of the rubber discharge piping at the bottom of the toilet in the form of a high volume water jet that creates a low pressure area at the bottom of the toilet and evacuates the toilet bowl. Then the flush valve closes and shuts off water flow.

If the flush valve does not seal the water flow there is only one failure point and that is the diaphragm in the flush valve has a defect or there is something where the diaphragm seats preventing a water seal allowing leakage.

If the flush valve can be accessed the two parts of the valve body can be separated, exposing the diaphragm which can be checked for a defect or for dirt where it seals. It is often far easier to clean or replace the diaphram than it is to replace the entire valve. The problem is if the converter located the valve so it can be serviced without removal.

[Marshall]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Why does this inevitably happen on a trip? I’d like just one trip where I’m not dealing with a problem with this coach. Anyway, water shutoff valve to the toilet is now also leaking, and we got a surprise overflow on to the floor and a completely full black tank. This would not be so bad if we had sewer hookup this week, but we don’t.

[Andrew]

To answer your question, it happens on a trip because you use the bus to go on trips.

The longer you delay doing the real fix, the greater the risk the deferred repair reaches out to bite you in the ass. I have a Headhunter valve decide to not shut off on a trip and intially tried to think of every way possible to avoid fixing it until we got home. It finally settled into my brain that I would spend more time opening and closing valves and in the long run it had to be fixed anyway.

Once I committed to fix it I had to find the damn flush valve, which in that situation was under a cabinet in the kitchen. I spent more time finding and accessing the valve than I spent with the repair. The bottom line however was 6 screws in the valve body opened it up, and in my case a small amount of debris was blocking the minute hole in the rubber diaphragm preventing pressure to equalize on both sides of the diaphragm so water flow would stop. The actual cleaning repair took 10 or 15 minutes and the problem was never repeated. I bitched and complained about the difficulty of finding and accessing the valve, but after I got it all fixed and back together I realized access and repair was actually relatively easy once I knew how to get at the valve and clean out the problem.

[Mike/Lisa]

Thanks for the explanation. I’ll see if I can access the valve to clean it today. If anyone has a 2001-era Featherlite and knows where this valve could be, please let me know. I’ll start looking in the plumbing bay to see if it’s somewhere in there.

[Dick]

My experience was similar to Jon’s. Once I found the valve and cleaned it up, things worked and that valve now resides under the bathroom sink and I guarantee you it didn’t get there by itself. The way life goes, I probably will never have to access it again! But if I do, will be easy to get to.

BTW: In my experince, $270 is one of cheaper repairs for coaches like ours.

All the best. Mike

[Art]

I found it, right next to the manual valve.

[Mike/Lisa]

Thank you everyone for the great advice. I agree $270 is on the lower end, and I am happy to pay it, but shipping logistics this close to Christmas make it likely impossible to get to me on time.

Anyways, I did find the valve and took it apart, and I am not exactly sure what was in there, but it might have been a sliver of wood. After dropping all the important parts upon disassembly and then finding them, I put it back together and so far we have no leak! Thanks again to everyone who helped. I just assumed I would need this part and did not consider cleaning it. Now I just have to fix an awning, and hopefully I can spend the rest of the vacation, vacationing.

[Alex]

Andrew, As you now know that leaky valve was a zero cost repair. After 33 years of ownership I can assure everyone that a whole lot of problems with our buses are easy repairs with little or no cost.

But I can also assure everyone that deferred maintenance can and will get very expensive because the initial problem is always like tipping the first domino.

Owners need to understand two things. First, on forums like this one there is usually someone who has had the issue, and can help a lot by offering advice on the solution. The second is for those needing advice to learn a whole lot of the answers provided on forums are from people who assume every conversion is like theirs and offer poor advice that does not apply to other conversions, or from people who do not have a clue and are willing to share their ignorance. That is being harsh, but bad advice can and will bite an owner in the ass so those seeking advice need to be certain of the quality of the advice. And if you seek advice do not shop for answers you like. Sometimes the correct advice is difficult or expensive, but is necessary.

BTW, no questions are dumb. There is not a single Prevost owner that knew all necessary about owning and servicing a Prevost so if you get some attitude about your questions ignore it. None of knows all we need to know, and most of us don’t yet know what we don’t know.