Sooo, just came back from an overnight trip on Monday and went to use the loo back at the dock. There was some grotty black looking discharge under the motor/Maceratror unit (jabsco 37010-0090) and the motor was struggling to spin. I pulled the unit out yesterday and I've just pulled it apart. I put some current on the motor and it spins, but was clearly corroded around the end plates on the outside. I investigated further and pulled down the electric motor. It was full of rusty water, like actually really full of water! There's significant corrosion inside and especially around the plastic end plate that holds a few circuits and wires where the bushes are mounted, one of the little capacitors has a wire corroded through completely.

I just priced a new complete unit (motor and macerator) at Pumptec in Sydney and it would cost $485 to get a new one delivered to me here in Tas.

A. Do I try and repair the existing unit, I'd at least have the cost of a new seal kit to do so($120)?

B. Bite the bullet and buy the replacement motor/macerator unit?

C. Buy a whole new loo? In which case what do you recommend, keeping in mind I want to keep the costs under control?

Have you considered a TMC, whitworths have one model for $300.00, complete toilet.

That sounds like an unpleasant way to wind up an overnighter. I would imagine the thing is cactus, I've had the TMC in service for a couple of years, and was only just contemplating putting a kit in it as its developing a minor rattle and like the raw water pump for the engine it's best to do it on your terms. So far as replacing the complete unit if it wasn't the same as existing, jobs like that tend to run away.
ps. When I leave the boat I turn of the sea water intake pump the bowl out then toss a cup of vinegar in there.

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UncleBob said..
Have you considered a TMC, whitworths have one model for $300.00, complete toilet.

I'll check it out, thanks.

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woko said..
That sounds like an unpleasant way to wind up an overnighter. I would imagine the thing is cactus, I've had the TMC in service for a couple of years, and was only just contemplating putting a kit in it as its developing a minor rattle and like the raw water pump for the engine it's best to do it on your terms. So far as replacing the complete unit if it wasn't the same as existing, jobs like that tend to run away.
ps. When I leave the boat I turn of the sea water intake pump the bowl out then toss a cup of vinegar in there.

So do you think the quality of TMC is good? I'd definitely consider it as a full replacement if it is.

Whitworths actually have the exact same jabsco loo for $470. That's $15 less than the replacement motor/macerator.

i have a baby blake bronze porcelain manual pump 1oo year old design never plays up

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boty said..
i have a baby blake bronze porcelain manual pump 1oo year old design never plays up

Show off!

I have a TMC electric, I don't think they are the absolute best quality, but parts are reasonable and the complete toilet is ridiculously economical.
Mine had scale build up, blocking the discharge, saltwater and human waste. No wonder some people get kidney stones!
anyway, my tip is to fill and flush the system in fresh water, when leaving the boat. An as the weather warms, ensure the holding tank is emptied regularly, legally!

Tmc all the way. Whitworths on special $299 with the new soft close seat. Spray the electric motor with lithem grease. Or just grease it solid by hand before fitting the plastic surround.

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boty said..
i have a baby blake bronze porcelain manual pump 1oo year old design never plays up

So which is more of a relic? Yoo or the Loo?

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2bish said..
Whitworths actually have the exact same jabsco loo for $470. That's $15 less than the replacement motor/macerator.

470 vs 300 there's proably not much difference in quality, complete kit for TMC $75.90

Just thought I would throw this in. I have the standard macerator head and am refitting the boat for a trip up on to the reef next year. I need to install a holding tank on a triton24. After talking to friends who cruised the pacific for three and a half yrs and used a composting loo and found it to be brilliant (if a loo can be brilliant) I'm going down that road. I couldn't afford the commercial ones so I am building my own. It has a urine diverter, mixing mechanism and fan to draw off moisture like the expensive units. So far so good when completed I'll post a couple of happy snaps if you guys are interested.
Winkali

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winkali said..
Just thought I would throw this in. I have the standard macerator head and am refitting the boat for a trip up on to the reef next year. I need to install a holding tank on a triton24. After talking to friends who cruised the pacific for three and a half yrs and used a composting loo and found it to be brilliant (if a loo can be brilliant) I'm going down that road. I couldn't afford the commercial ones so I am building my own. It has a urine diverter, mixing mechanism and fan to draw off moisture like the expensive units. So far so good when completed I'll post a couple of happy snaps if you guys are interested.
Winkali

First thing to do is buy Peggie Hall's book.

www.amazon.com.au/New-Get-Boat-Odors-Second/dp/1892399784/ref=asc_df_1892399784/?tag=googleshopdsk-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=341792441747&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1280695158649704601&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=20035&hvtargid=pla-491698623569&psc=1

Sam is pretty rough and ready with his (composting toilet) installation.
"Laid back", could be the phrase.

Gary

Thanks for all the replies and advice. Good to hear the TMC's are decent, I looked at the replacement parts for them and they're an order of magnitude cheaper than the Jabsco. For the record, the failure point in mine was the seal between the electric motor and the impeller pump. I put a full seal kit through the unit two and a half years back. The impeller is located in a plastic housing that bolts to the motor. If the seal fails, then the water accumulates in the plastic housing on the electric motor side. There seems to be a bit of a weep hole but it looks like it blocks up if the aluminium end plate starts to corrode. I assume the water then finds its way past the motor shaft bearing and into the motor. **** design, pun intended! I'll be inspecting the engineering on whatever I end up with and drilling a good size weep hole if there isn't one already and perhaps packing the whole thing with grease as suggested.

Has anyone come across the SPX FLOW Johnson Pump Silent Electric toilets?

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cisco said..

boty said..
i have a baby blake bronze porcelain manual pump 1oo year old design never plays up

So which is more of a relic? Yoo or the Loo?

pretty much the same

The old manual heads were/are simple and reliable. If you have room you can also have a portapotti for enclosed waters work. Mine sits between the forward bunks, and opening the heads door provides a private fore-cabin.
Holding tanks etc are problematic and not that practical. Plenty of places ashore to empty the Potti.

Ok, so I showed my existing motor/macerator unit to a mate (electrician). He has the same unit and it did exactly the same thing with the same level of corrosion. He cleaned his up and it's been working fine. So I decided to take the risk, by doing a restoration with a full seal kit. I completely disassembled the electric motor and flooded everything with wd40. Then wire brushed and scraped and sanded and then more wd40 to clean it all. One of the small capacitors across the wiring to one of the brushes had corroded through one attachment wire, but I was able to pare back enough of the casing to expose the root of the wire to solder the wire on again. I was going to just throw a new one on, but neither Jaycar or a local electronics store had one in stock with the correct value and I couldn't be arsed waiting 3 or 4 days. All was assembled and bench tested and was working. I've installed it back in the boat and time will tell if it's been worth it. This exercise has been worth it for the information I've gathered at the very least. Thanks again for your input, I've identified a couple of options for an upgrade at some time.

The Loo Files [update]
I'm an idiot! I've been aware for a long time that the macerator pump that pumps out my holding tank needed attention. It seemed to be getting harder to pump out the business offshore and the sound was a bit different. But hey it was still working and there was sailing to do and to be frank, the thought of pulling that puppy apart was pretty gruesome and put me off. So after I got my toilet repaired and working again, I went to do a pump out after a night out last weekend and..... nothing, nada, nyet! no matter the language, it didn't make a peep. Subsequent investigation with wiring, connections etc. found a fuse blown. New fuse - instantly blew when I hit the pump button! There's probably some kind on mechanical seizure, so there's either a seized bearing/bush or self-destructed impeller seizing it up, and hopefully the electric motor is ok.

Seeing as there's no pump-out facility in Kettering where I keep the boat, I sailed to Hobart yesterday to use the Tas Ports facility at the Kings Pier Marina. The Sanivax pump there is a bit dodgy, but after a lot of stuffing around, I got the unit to work by stretching the whole 15m of hose along the dock and backfilling it with water from a fire hose. That primed it ok and I was pretty relieved to see it working. I did a couple of flushes of clean water with the fire hose until it ran clear in the vac hose. So the first part of the job is done.

My macerator pump is an Italian branded unit: Matromarine/Ocean Technologies. I spoke to someone at Sam Allen Wholesale, who are the agents. The units are good quality but they're sort of moving out of them because they're very expensive. He doesn't have any spares but can get them, however it would take months. Once I measure up the impeller, I can send him details and he might have one for something else that'll fit. Gaskets I can make. Bearings and bushes I can source independently. So hopefully I can resurrect it.

b.t.w. I departed Hobart at the end of the day, just as the Investigator was returning to port. With 7 knot winds, I was making 5 knots sog on a beam reach, nice and cruisy. Downriver the wind built into the 8-12 range so I was making a respectable 6-6.5 sog. It was 4 hours travel time back to Kettering and sailing in the dark was nice, even using my Ipad and iSailor for Navigation because my Axiom plotter is in Sydney getting checked, but that's another tale. Next task - pull the pump out and disassemble, I wonder what I'll find?

The tale gets more gruesome. A gravity tank is a good alternative to pump out, if you have the room ? I know some folks have a different point of veiw on holding weight above the water line, but in reality when your likely to encounter conditions that require a carefull consideration of stability, it's also the case that your off shore enough to allow disposal of black water

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woko said..
The tale gets more gruesome. A gravity tank is a good alternative to pump out, if you have the room ? I know some folks have a different point of veiw on holding weight above the water line, but in reality when your likely to encounter conditions that require a carefull consideration of stability, it's also the case that your off shore enough to allow disposal of black water

Yeah I know , gruesome as! Good point regarding stability too as our tank is in the back lazarette. When I put this back together, I'm going to put in a Y valve at the hose from the holding tank to the pump, then a bypass hose to a tee on the delivery side of the pump on the downward run of the pipe. When I have issues again, I can divert around the pump and empty most of it with gravity. That also has the advantage of allowing me to isolate the pump from a potentially full tank/hose, so that I can remove and work on it. And of course, when offshore we can leave the gravity pipe run open.

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2bish said..

woko said..
The tale gets more gruesome. A gravity tank is a good alternative to pump out, if you have the room ? I know some folks have a different point of veiw on holding weight above the water line, but in reality when your likely to encounter conditions that require a carefull consideration of stability, it's also the case that your off shore enough to allow disposal of black water

Yeah I know , gruesome as! Good point regarding stability too as our tank is in the back lazarette. When I put this back together, I'm going to put in a Y valve at the hose from the holding tank to the pump, then a bypass hose to a tee on the delivery side of the pump on the downward run of the pipe. When I have issues again, I can divert around the pump and empty most of it with gravity. That also has the advantage of allowing me to isolate the pump from a potentially full tank/hose, so that I can remove and work on it. And of course, when offshore we can leave the gravity pipe run open.

Before you do anything to your tank or valves etc buy and read Peggie Halls book.

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Ramona said..

2bish said..

woko said..
The tale gets more gruesome. A gravity tank is a good alternative to pump out, if you have the room ? I know some folks have a different point of veiw on holding weight above the water line, but in reality when your likely to encounter conditions that require a carefull consideration of stability, it's also the case that your off shore enough to allow disposal of black water

Yeah I know , gruesome as! Good point regarding stability too as our tank is in the back lazarette. When I put this back together, I'm going to put in a Y valve at the hose from the holding tank to the pump, then a bypass hose to a tee on the delivery side of the pump on the downward run of the pipe. When I have issues again, I can divert around the pump and empty most of it with gravity. That also has the advantage of allowing me to isolate the pump from a potentially full tank/hose, so that I can remove and work on it. And of course, when offshore we can leave the gravity pipe run open.

Before you do anything to your tank or valves etc buy and read Peggie Halls book.

I actually have an electronic version of that, I haven't looked at it for a while. Which section are you referring to Ramona?

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2bish said..

Ramona said..

I actually have an electronic version of that, I haven't looked at it for a while. Which section are you referring to Ramona?

All of it. Anything Peggie writes anywhere is worth reading. I think she is retired now but still has the occasional post on cruisersforum.com.

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Ramona said..

2bish said..

Ramona said..

I actually have an electronic version of that, I haven't looked at it for a while. Which section are you referring to Ramona?

All of it. Anything Peggie writes anywhere is worth reading. I think she is retired now but still has the occasional post on cruisersforum.com.

Yep I had a quick look and she pretty much supports the plan I'll go with, but I'll do a bit more study, thanks for the reminder. Yes she seems to be pretty active on cruisers forum, I chatted to her a couple of weeks ago about the xps flow/johnson loo I was researching. She wasn't aware of that one and got pretty excited about researching a new loo