waste valve cable length

[Budman2082]

Like many others our cable pulls for the black tank and two gray tanks are hard to open and close. Anyone have any idea of the correct cable lengths needed for replacement? FR customer service is non-existent and dealers won't talk to you unless your under warranty.
2014 FR CC 36CKTS

[Doug Currie]

I did not measure mine when I opened up the underbelly. It will happen again if you replace them eventually. I just changed out the cables for these. Working great.

[NMWildcat]

The cables that came with my unit were way too long and were coiled up and had unnecessary bends in them. They became difficult almost immediately.
I opened up the belly to fix several things, and fixed the cables by ordering the correct length and routing them in a more direct manner. That was 7 years ago.
No way to tell the cable lengths needed until you open it up and determine what is needed for your particular unit and routing.
If you are having problems getting service from dealers, try an independent service only shop or mobile. You will be pleasantly surprised.

[Budman2082]

Thanks for the response. I was hoping to have everything available and ready before opening the belly. Looks like I'll be doing some exploring first.

[Harkerr]

I have replaced my troublesome black cable with an electric valve
No problems since. Gray next.

[Shipper]

Spray them with silicone...won't solve length problems, but will make them easier to pull.

[sailski]

Originally Posted by Shipper

Spray them with silicone...won't solve length problems, but will make them easier to pull.

Since the cables are similar to a bike cable I imagine it would be difficult to get any spray inside the cable that is protected with a vinyl covering.

My Sprinter based motorhome is about 7 feet wide. When I needed to replace the valve I ordered a 6 foot long cable. Surprisingly it was shorter than the old one and a tad too short but we just made it reach. Unfortunately that "fix" did not work and I had to replace both valves and cables. This time we were able to get 1 8 foot cable and reused the original 8' cable. The original cables were actually too long and were looped around to take up the excess. It took a couple of tries before we got them to work smoothly.

If your cables have excess my advise to you would to cut the wire ties holding the cables up and experiment with re-routing the cables so they work easily. Or I think the cables can be shortened to the exact length your RV needs. Maybe check with a bike shop about this. They may have more experience with shortening cables and making them work easily.

[Tundra 2014]

I have a cable spray attachment I got from a motorcycle shop. It allows you to clamp on to the cable and has a port to insert the needle spray tube (little red straw) off a can of spray lube and force it into the cable. I originally used on ATV cables. I have used Boeshield T-9 for this for 15 years w/ good results.I was flushing out grit and water. As others have said, bigger problem may be excess cable and the way it was installed.

[Budman2082]

The cable spray attachment sounds easy enough. Will have to look into that. The electric valves are above my pay grade. Don't like messing with anything I can't see.

[sailski]

Originally Posted by Tundra 2014

I have a cable spray attachment I got from a motorcycle shop. It allows you to clamp on to the cable and has a port to insert the needle spray tube (little red straw) off a can of spray lube and force it into the cable. I originally used on ATV cables. I have used Boeshield T-9 for this for 15 years w/ good results.I was flushing out grit and water. As others have said, bigger problem may be excess cable and the way it was installed.

Thank you for this tidbit of wisdom. That's what I love about this forum. I never imagined anything like this existed. All I was imagining was someone emptying a can of PFTE on the outside of the cable that never reached the inner wire.

[TryingToLearn]

I'm not sure where but I recall reading the radius of a bend in the cable should be no less than 12". That's not much of a bend but it makes perfect sense. I was able to shorten my cable by observing how it was attached, how much cable was sticking out of the housing , figuring how to disconnect (not easy to find the set screw), pulling the cable out of the housing, cutting the housing shorter then cutting the cable to the same extra length as originally measured.

While I had it apart, flushed out the housing with a silicone spray, wiped off the cable of any grit, reassembled and WOW what a difference.

DO NOT USE WD-40, it is not a lubricant, it is a solvent...

[Budman2082]

Thank you. Would like to do that but the cable end attached to the valve is enclosed. Haven't figured out how to disconnect. Looking for a Valterra valve diagram to see if I can get in there.