Dried Out Seals

[renrut]

I've been busy getting my rig ready for the summer but have a small problem. The seals in the toilet are drying up and are starting to leak. The problem is, I can't take the toilet apart because someone glued it together. I can get at a couple seals but I can only get at them and not remove them.

Does anyone know of a way to make seals softer and work better? I don't like my toilet running and leaking. I can't connect to a pressurized water line with things the way they are. I can only use the built in pump and storage tank. At least with the pump, I can turn it off.

 

[g1g]

Do you mean the fresh water leaks into the toilet or black water tank? If so can you put a shutoff valve on the line someplace.

 

[renrut]

I'll look at putting a valve in the line. I never thought of that but it would solve one part of the problem.

There are 2 seals leaking. When I flush the toilet, water comes out a seal at the top of the flush valve. I can get at it but need some way of getting it to seal better. It's not too big of a problem. The other seal I can't get at. Some times, the toilet keeps running. Last time we were out, we didn't know the toilet was still running. Luckily, we noticed the water rising in the bottom of the shower and turned the water off. The tank was over full. I had to drive very slow to the dumping station.

 

[markopolo-ClassB]

........... I had to drive very slow to the dumping station.

I bet you did. You could have had a mini flood!

I don't know of anything that would condition the seals. You could epoxy everything in place but you'd never be able to take it apart.

 

[markopolo-ClassB]

Did you solve this problem?

The bowl seal on mine has dried out (this RV sat for a year unused). There's a product called "rubber renew" that is used to recondition the rubber rollers on laser printers. I wonder if it would help.

I think I'll try to replace the seal in mine.

Has anyone done this?

 

[renrut]

Never solved the problem. I put antifreeze in the system last fall because my pump dried out, leaked and rusted out the bearing seizing it up. I'm going to see if keeping everything wet with the antifreeze helps.

There are rubber restorers for VCR's and any type of device that has rubber wheels in it. I've used it a lot on video recorders. It takes a small layer of the rubber off and then moistens the rubber. Problem is, with O-rings, will taking a small layer off make things worse? If I could get at the seals, using simple vasoline on them would help and vasoline is non-toxic.