Solitude Black Tank Valve handle Broke

[Steven@147]

You don't need to replace by dropping the underbelly in the 3350. Clear out your basement and take down the bulkhead. You can get to there. Most all the valves will interchange on the flanges. There's plenty of wiggle room with the tanks to be able to pry apart. Depending how wild they cut the basement floor will be how easy it is, and no problem to clean up some of those cuts.

Thanks, That's encouraging, I'll take a look

[Steven@147]

Well just another day in the life of an RVer. LOL's. This kind of thing always happens when you don't want it to, it's cold, rainy and lots of sea fog. At lease we don't have the freezing rain, sleet, snow here as they do in central/northern Texas, so thats a good thing. Supposed to clear up Thursday.

[Sportsdad60]

Sorry about your Murphy.
Where are you in Texas? Today in Port Aransas it is 37 deg, wind blowing 19 mph, and "feels like" temp of 27 deg.
We are in this until Sat when its suppose to warm up.

[Steven@147]

Sorry about your Murphy.
Where are you in Texas? Today in Port Aransas it is 37 deg, wind blowing 19 mph, and "feels like" temp of 27 deg.
We are in this until Sat when its suppose to warm up.

Galveston, temp 44 real feel 31, lots of rain. According to ACCU Weather Friday its supposed to be 57 and sunny, Saturday 59 and sunny in Galveston. Just when the new valve is supposed to arrive.
Glad I'm not up in San Antonio, Austin or up in Dallas!! From the local news they have all kinds of winter weather and vehicle crashes. Saw these people blasting down the highways, come on to a flyover and its like billiard balls bouncing off each other.

[Steven@147]

I'm going to continue my thread in case someone else has this happen. I have a game plan to fix the issue and if you have this happen to you, you can hatch your own plan to fix the issue. see all the pics below.

What happened - When I was dumping the black tank, just as the dump valve was opening, the handle pulled out of the metal handle assembly and right off the inner cable. The tank did start to drain but the valve was not open enough to let the solid contents fully flush out.
I closed my external Valterra valve to hold the contents and liquids in the pipes. I was concerned that if the liquids drained out the solids would stay trapped at the partially open valve and cause a clog/blockage, my plan at least until I can get the black tank dump valve fully open.

I needed to take the metal thread handle assembly off the cable to get to the inner wire the pull handle attaches to. The metal assembly holding the pull handle just threads onto the plastic cable about 2 inches. Got it off and then had access to the inner pull wire. I drilled a small hole in the nautilus panel near where the pull handle mounts, then stuck the inner wire through the hole and now the plastic pull cable has something to butt up against. Grabbed a hold of the inner wire with some plyers and pulled, the dump valve fully opened.

Now I can flush the black tank and get it cleaned out. There was some clogging /blockage but I got it all out and flushed the tank 3 times. The black tank dump valve is fully open and for now I will use my exterior Valterra valve to control the black tank until I get the black tank valve replaced.

I have a new Valterra dump valve on order and when it arrives I got a plan to replace it or the cable which ever I need to do.
I found out the pull handle inner wire goes into the pull handle about half inch and the end of the pull handle is crimped to the wire. Well I guess it wasn't crimped very well so once the the valve was a little hard to open the handle just pulled right off the inner wire.

[Steven@147]

Got the new Valterra dump valve and checked it out for all parts being there. You get the valve, cable, seals and new bolts and a bracket I don't think I'll need. I did get an additional seal kit just in case I mangle a new seal putting this thing together.

I will say I'm not looking forward to doing this repair and I have no idea exactly where the dump valve is located, how it's orientated, how the cable is run to it or what/where the cable is strapped down to stuff. I assume the valve is at the outside end of the tank nearest the left frame, but I don't know. I can not see it through the cut hole in the floor in the storage compartment behind the wall. I can not open the floor hole anymore or I'll run into where the water pump is located. I can see where the toilet pipe goes into the tank but that's it. So I guess I'll have to pull back the left rear corner of the forward half of the coroplast under the rig to get to the valve. If my original Bristol valve has a replaceable cable I could use the the new Valterra cable to fix it. If not I'll have to replace the whole dump valve.

[Always Learning]

Got the new Valterra dump valve and checked it out for all parts being there. You get the valve, cable, seals and new bolts and a bracket I don't think I'll need. I did get an additional seal kit just in case I mangle a new seal putting this thing together.

I will say I'm not looking forward to doing this repair and I have no idea exactly where the dump valve is located, how it's orientated, how the cable is run to it or what/where the cable is strapped down to stuff. I assume the valve is at the outside end of the tank nearest the left frame, but I don't know. I can't see it through the cut hole in the floor in the storage compartment behind the wall. I can't open the floor hole anymore or I'll run into where the water pump is located. I can see where the toilet pipe goes into the tank but that's it. So I guess I'll have to pull back the left front corner of the coroplast under the rig to get to the valve. If my original Bristol valve has a replaceable cable I could use the the new Valterra cable to fix it. If not I'll have to replace the whole dump valve.

If you have a Bristol valve you may want to get a Bristol valve replacement in hopes the cable is replaceable.

My Bristol valve had a piece of formed plastic attached to the valve end of the cable housing which slid into the mating groves of the Bristol valve and held with a screw. This was a Bristol valve custom connection so a Ventura valve may be different. The purpose of the plastic piece attached to the cable is to provide a fixed point to lock the cable housing to the valve body so the cable sheath does not move when the cable is pulled.

Since you said the valve opened when you pulled on the cable with vice grips you may want to try and replace the cable and not the entire valve. If it were me I would order the Bristol valve to have on hand.

I replaced a kitchen grey valve and it was a total PIA with nasty smelling water. I hope to never have to do a black tank valve. If I ever need to replace a black valve I would look for a disposable hazmat suit, lots of rags and put down a large tarp that can be tossed when done. No matter how well you clean the tank out there will be nasty water dripping out.

On my Reflection 337 I had to drop the belly cover back to the steps to get to the valves.

Good luck

[Always Learning]

Here is my Bristol valve. This was a warranty valve from GD and has the glue on connectors. The valve comes apart at the bolts. The Phillips head screw holds the custom end of the cable housing to the body of the valve. The cable wire extends down to the silver metal piece with the set screw.

[Hoopy Frood]

I had to pull the black tank valve when Peggy dropped a bottle down the toilet. Honestly it wasn't that bad. Not something I'd want to do very often, but just a bit of smelly water.

[Steven@147]

See the problem I am running into is that the Lasalle Bristol valve 34466N4BB72GM or GDRV part number 310112 is not the part number that has a replaceable cable. Then when inquiring about the LaSalle Bristol valve that has the replaceable cable they don't seem to know about it and I can't find or get the part number and even then they say LaSalle Bristol does not market just a replaceable cable for order. They did say (etrailer) the Valterra cable should/might work if you do have a bristol valve with a replaceable cable. It all got so convoluted that I gave up trying to find the right LaSalle Bristol valve and just ordered the Valterra. I'll know more when I get an eyeball on the valve.