Grey water tank leaking, after inspecting I discovered a 14 inch crack that had been poorly repaired. My question is repair or replace and whats the best way of doing both?
It might be helpful to have a picture of how/where it's cracked to make an assessment of options for you.
I always do plastic welding with a 30W soldering iron (stain glass supplies): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9R0cIav_fI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9R0cIav_fI)
For white colored tanks (e.g fresh water), I use Polyethylene Icemaker tubing as the filler.
For black colored tanks or plumbing pipes, I use scraps of ABS piping as the filler
Always drill a hole at the end of a crack to stop it from continuing to run.
I have used a plastic welder from harbor freight to do repairs, and modifications to various plastic tanks over the years, with great success.
The hardest part of that tends to be finding a like kind material to use as filler.
The rest is easy, just heat it up, and lay in filler, and maybe stir it around a little.
You may have to poke around and find some scrap plastic, or an old red gas can. If you have a plastic supplier in town, you can buy scrap pieces of a similar material.
A lot of tanks use to have the plastic type coded ion the tank somewhere,
Thanks for the tips, I tried welding with a torch and plastic jug didn't hold to good I will try it with soldering iron and plastic tubing, I am assuming once I find the same type plastic it works good, is this correct?
Yes, the filler material has to be the same as the base material. For a white colored tank you want to use Polyethylene Icemaker tubing as the filler.
Finally got the grey tank repaired, it was actually pretty easy with a soldering iron. I spent more time on cleanup this time and bought some tubing of course rite after I bought some I found about 50 foot I new I had somewhere. I went at it kinda like using a welder on steel and took my time and the crack sealed up nicely not a drop leaked out over the weekend.
Thanks for all the help on this
I found on my 1977 original tanks that repairs held up ok but original material was not strong enough for the weight of full tanks and kept developing new cracks Even though I had added extra strap support underneath So I replaced both of them (they had to manufacture them when I ordered them )The original material does decay No further problems Frank
Frank thanks for the heads up, hopefully the repair holds for a while so I can get some of the other stuff done. This is one of those old homes in appearance and on paper looks good but then you buy it and start finding all the hidden stuff that makes you wanta pull your hair out or shoot the person you bought it from, but at least it seems to be solid just needs a lot of tlc.
Quote from: Jerry on June 28, 2016, 02:42 PM
Frank thanks for the heads up, hopefully the repair holds for a while so I can get some of the other stuff done. This is one of those old homes in appearance and on paper looks good but then you buy it and start finding all the hidden stuff that makes you wanta pull your hair out or shoot the person you bought it from, but at least it seems to be solid just needs a lot of tlc.
Have you ever read the PO thread on here??? You should....You could add to it.
http://www.classicwinnebagos.com/forum/index.php/topic,8851.0.html (http://www.classicwinnebagos.com/forum/index.php/topic,8851.0.html)