Broken water tank connections

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GarryP

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2010
Messages
114
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Mango Mama
Vessel Make
Krogen Manatee 36
Each of my water tanks have one 1/2" drain connection and two 3/8" connections (high and low) for water level indication. When I turned one of the 3/8" ball valves it came away in my hand!

The connections appear to be a pipe stub welded to the tank with a pipe coupling welded to the pipe stub. The adapter between the ball valve and the coupling apparently deteriorated and became very weak. I couldn't tell what material it was made from, it was black and crumbly.

The threaded portion of the adapter remained in the coupling and was impossible to remove. I checked the others and one broke easily; two others took a little more force. Only two were intact enough to unscrew.

I decided to simply hose clamp larger diameter tubing to the OD of the welded coupling. For the level indication connections, I simply ran the hose from one connection to the other with no valves.

For the drains, I adapted down to 1/2" tubing and installed two new ball valves. I reused the bronze check valves (one of them had been stuck so that side tank wouldn't drain).

Not a whole lot of fun but I'm glad it's done now.
 
Gary, you've proved again that necessity is the mother of invention. *Nice work.
 
Sorry to hear...since our T is a year older. I'll be very careful handling those valves.
 

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