Electric to manual Toilet

Brett13
Brett13 Forum Participant Posts: 1
edited July 2021 in Caravans #1

Hello all , sorry if this is the wrong place or been mentioned before , me and my little family have got our 1st van and shes a beauty and very well priced considering the covid tax on caravans at the moment , my one issue is the electric toilet doesn't flush , i replaced the button , checked the fuse , replaced the pump , i have 12v power .. im just at a loss with it at the moment , my question is can i just convert it to manual ??  thank you in advance , couple of little pics of "jeanie" 2002 sterling eccles emerald .

Comments

  • eyebrowsb
    eyebrowsb Forum Participant Posts: 554
    edited July 2021 #2

    The likely problem is the contacts on the pcb inside the toilet.  If you peel off the top where you press the buttons you can access the pcb.  There is a push on contact strip on the side.  Pull this off and clean the contacts on the pcb with an emery board or fine sandpaper.  Put the contact strip back on and see if it works.  Thetford toilets are notorious for this issue.  If that fails you may need a new pcb.  Commonly available along with the stick on part.  As for changing to manual I would very much doubt it without changing the whole toilet.  Any problems shout up.  If you have a Dometic, then sorry for giving the wrong advice.

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,195 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3

    Hello and welcome, Jeanie looks lovely. Hopefully the above will work. If it doesn't all is not lost, an indoor watering can - suggested in case you have little ones who may be happy to use the entire contents 😉, will rinse the bowl. You can also add a spray bottle with say Zoflora disinfectant to freshen the bowl too. We're an ingenious bunch.

    There's a thread about using bio washing pods, cheapest you can get - Aldi or Lidl instead of toilet liquids. And cheap toilet paper, not that expensive thin stuff from caravan suppliers. Loads of useful info, if you can find it 🤞search engine is rubbish, on making our hobby cheaper.

    Plenty of knowledge on here, ask and you'll get assistance. There are various ways of doing things nothing is right or wrong APART from staying within PAYLOADS 

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #4

    Welcome, Hope you can get this sorted, we had a similar problem in a nice van like yours. Our early days with a caravan too. We replaced the micro switch, I think it had got damp. Hope Lyn Ruby's solution works. It only happened to us once, a big water jug came  in handy! smile

  • KjellNN
    KjellNN Club Member Posts: 8,670 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #5

    Nice van!   We had a 1998 Emerald for 10 years, the front layout was different then as ours had bench seats facing each other.  It had a manual flush toilet.

    We now have a 2008 Sterling and have had many problems with the electric flush.......poor connections to the PCB........dodgy pump......phantom  flushing (flushes at random when nobody is near it and does not stop!).

    I got so fed up that I fitted an extra button on top of the flush tank so you had to press both buttons together to flush.  That cured the phantom flushing.

    Now the original flush button has given up, so I have wired the pump direct to my second button and ditched the PCB and original button altogether.

    Sounds like that could be a solution you could use too if all else fails.

  • cyberyacht
    cyberyacht Forum Participant Posts: 10,218
    1000 Comments
    edited July 2021 #6

    One wonders why the complexity of a PCB is required for an on/off function. So much for the KISS principle.

  • Burgundy
    Burgundy Forum Participant Posts: 313
    100 Comments
    edited July 2021 #7

    Looks like a Thetford C200 which we had in our last van. I had to replace the pump as it had seized up. If your van has stood for some time that could be the problem.

    You have to carefully remove the panel the push button is mounted in, just held in with mastic.
    If you google

    “https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=replace+pump+thetford+c200&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-gb&client=safari”

    there is a very good article explaining all the steps

    Hope this helps

  • Dave Nicholson
    Dave Nicholson Forum Participant Posts: 408
    edited July 2021 #8

    I replaced the electric flush mechanism on a Thetford loo some years ago. It was a relatively simple matter of removing the bezel that includes the push button and replacing it with a similar bezel that housed the manual pump. The water pipe connections inside the reservoir were very similar. It depends on which model loo you have and whether both manual and electric models were available. It was definitely an improvement.

  • mnlatham
    mnlatham Forum Participant Posts: 108
    edited July 2021 #9

    When ours failed in Spain we just rinsed with a jug of water, worked OK for us.

  • EmilysDad
    EmilysDad Forum Participant Posts: 8,973
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    edited July 2021 #10

    surely it must be easier to fix what's already there than try to convert it to something else?

  • geoffeales
    geoffeales Forum Participant Posts: 322
    edited August 2021 #11

    I've changed the pump on my Thetford twice and seriously considered changing to the old plunger type this time. You can get them, made by Thetford, you just lift the top off the tank where the blue button is and remove the pump and wiring and then the plunger drops in the same hole, easy-peasy. You can get them on Ebay for about the price of an electric pump but will surely last many years longer. 

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