Re: [A/S] '69 Safari black water tank and rear bath floor renovation

["Harvey Barlow" <harveybarlow@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I just completed resolving the identical problem two weeks ago on my
daughter's '72 27' Overlander and I am going to begin the same procedure
tomorrow morning on my own '66 Safari.  I knew exactly as much about the job
the day I began as you probably know as you wrote your e-mail.  I learned it
all the hard way so maybe my experience will help you.

The fixture that holds the tank in place is a 3" hard plastic collar that
screws through the bathroom floor into a threaded, molded flange on the top
of the black water tank.  That collar is what you are looking at after the
toilet is removed and it includes the slotted holes which the toilet
hold-down bolts are attached to.  The collar is supposed to be removed by
rotating counter-clock-wise.  Unfortunately, my daughter's tank collar would
not turn free of the tank and I ended up ripping it away from the tank.  It
was not a loss, as it turned out, because the top of the tank had already
split away from the molded-in collar flange around about 2/3s to 3/4s of the
circumference of the tank.  That tank-collar separation is the result when
the rear 1" angle iron rusts away, the rear of the tank drops, and an
intolerable stress is placed on the tank collar flange when the tank is
full.

I am told that when the trailers of that vintage were built, a piece of
formed aluminum wrapped around the rear edge of the plywood floor and
attached to another piece of thin steel flat stock which ran across the
frame rails.  There was no remaining evidence that the floor had ever been
properly suspended in my daughter's trailer and the floor had sagged
approximately 1/2" as yours has.

The tank cover is thin sheet metal as is the belly skin.  Both were rusted
away in my daughter's trailer.  I cut both away with metal shears and
discarded them.  I recommend cutting the belly skin away just to the rear of
the angle iron that holds the front edge of the black water tank.  After the
tank is removed, you can trim the belly skin along a neat line at the angle
iron support.  That way, when you put it all back together, you can cut and
attach new belly skin from the same angle iron to the rear covering the cut
edge of the front belly skin.

The gray water drain lines attach to a section of plastic pipe which is down
stream of the black water dump valve.  The rear of the black tank has a
molded square flange at the rear which attaches with four machine screws to
the black water dump valve.  If you remove the nuts and four screws that
hold the black tank flange and the dump valve together, you can remove the
tank while leaving the drain plumbing in place.  The only top connections to
the tank are the toilet collar and a vent stack.  The vent stack attaches
with a slip joint over a 2" stub of plastic pipe molded into the black tank.

When the black tank, tank cover, and belly skin were removed we removed the
accumulated rust and debris with a wirebrush and painted the frame rails
with Rustoleum spray can primer.

You may have to locate a replacement tank.  I was luckier.  After removal, I
took the black tank to a local irrigation equipment repair shop.  The shop
had a thick, molded, hard plastic two piece industrial fitting which
provided a perfect solution.  I don't know what it's intended purpose was
but once installed, a standard RV toilet mounting collar could be screwed
back into its inside threads.  Since I had ripped the molded flange away
from the tank top and split the tank top back away from the original opening
when I removed it, the solution was easy to implement.  The repair shop
forced the hard plastic flange and threaded collar down into the tank
through the jagged opening, covered the top of the flange with plastic tank
weld or silicon sealer, pulled the collar back up through the opening, and
screwed the matching round 1/2" plastic nut down around the collar.  I had
to improvise because the original tank fits flush up against the plywood
floor and only the collar protruded though the floor.  With the repair
flange, approximately 1/2" thick, I had to enlarge the hole in the floor so
the tank would fit flush again.

I cut a length of 1" angle iron to support the rear of the tank and drilled
it to match the mounting tabs on the frame across the rear of the tank.  If
I was doing the job again, I would use 1 1/4" or 1 1/2" angle iron for the
rear support for added strength, I don't think there was any reason why the
larger angle wouldn't have fit.  I took the remaining portion of the
original tank cover to a shop that manufactures HVAC ducting from sheet
metal and had a replacement tank cover made.  We also purchased a sheet of
29 gauge(?) sheet metal from the same shop to use for the new belly skin.

You will have to manufacture and install a bracket to hold the sagging rear
bathroom floor or the tank, tank cover, and your new angle iron bracket will
be trying unsuccessfully to hold up the bathroom floor under your weight as
well as suspending the heavy, full black tank.  (Actually, if you don't
support the floor, the tank and tank cover will not fit between the floor
and the angle iron tank bracket.)  I had a surplus length of thin steel 3"
angle lying around and I cut it wider than the frame rails and, via the rear
trunk compartment, slipped it down between the rear shell of the trailer
with its bottom horizontal section pointed forward under the rear edge of
the plywood floor.  I forcibly lifted the sagging plywood floor from the
bottom by placing a floor jack against the steel angle bracket, pressing up
against the sagging rear floor using a piece of 4" by 4" block.  When I got
the floor and the bracket back in place, even with the trailer frame's lower
edge, I inserted a series of sheet metal screws through pre-drilled holes in
the steel angle and attached them to the bottom edge frame of the body skin
across the rear of the trailer.

We did not give any serious thought to adding a gray water tank.  I assume
you would have two choices.  Either use a smaller black tank and share the
original space between the frame rails with a new gray tank, or install a
gray tank ahead of the black tank.  You would have to consider the fact that
the water tank is already mounted in front of the black tank and the axle or
axles are mounted under this area.  It sounds like a fairly complicated
reengineering job to me, but if you remove the entire belly skin, an ideal
space may be revealed.

I'm not a technical writer so it is difficult to convey the entire project
to another person using only words and no drawings.  I hope what I have
written makes sense and will help you.  I'll be glad to try to clarify or
answer any additional questions you may have if I have not explained the
task in a way you can understand.

I hope this helps.

Harvey Barlow
Lubbock, TX
'93 Excella, '66 Safari, VAC