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Old 01-19-2017, 02:13 PM   #1
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Fresh Water Inlet Valve Leaks

The world froze a few nights ago (-7° F) while we were in our 2016 Coachmen Prism (2150LE). Everything, except the fresh water inlet valve, survived. It apparently froze as there is now a small leak behind the black plastic hose bib. On this coach, the black hose bib is fresh water inlet, and the white bib is for black water cleaning … make sense … right? (But let's leave this issue to a future discussion.) This leak (maybe a crack) allows air to escape when the water pump is on, thus the pump does achieve sufficient pressure to automatically switch off. I verified the leak with soapy water bubbles. I need to replace the valve or otherwise fix this problem. The leak is probably small since the water pump still delivers good water pressure. Can anyone tell me exactly what parts are needed or what kind of plastic the black hose bib is composed of? I need to do a field repair, but don't want to dig into it without learning a little more about what I am getting into. I am hoping that it a PVC or ABS plastic such that I can chemically weld the leak for a temporary fix.
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Old 01-19-2017, 02:40 PM   #2
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Here'a a couple of videos that show the back side of the city water hook up.
It is odd that they used the white connection for the black flush but it doesn't surprise me.

My apologies if I misread your post and you are saying the part with the blue handle leaks. I wasn't sure??

.

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Old 01-19-2017, 02:49 PM   #3
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On further searching, it looks like the city water connection and the diverter valve (blue handle) may be all one piece. You may get lucky and be able to fix something (JB Weld) but likely will need to replace the whole thing.



Here it is on eBay.
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Old 01-19-2017, 08:09 PM   #4
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5picker, thank you for you assistance; the picture of the diverter valve gave me enough insight about what to expect, so I opened it up for a closure look. Thank you … that information led me to find and repair the problem. I was being overly cautious because another storm is coming; not knowing what was “behind the curtain” I feared not being able to button everything back up before the next storm tomorrow. It snowed about 4 inches last night, turned to rain by morning, but finally cleared, thus making today a good day to get it done.


Although not exactly the same, the photo is functionally the same and could be used as a replacement. In my configuration there are elbows on each side. I found the leak, under pressure to be a defective elbow on the left side. The seam on the inside bend of the elbow had an extremely small hole that cannot be seen, but squirts water under pressure. The seam was probably defective from manufacture … the freeze simply exposed it. It was good that I found this because it had actually leaked a lot of water into the space under the shower and was probably finding its way out along the corner wall. I used almost an entire roll of paper towels sopping up as much water as I could. I am using a heater and fan to dry the remainder. I suppose I should have taken photographs of the project for other folks to see, but I was under a lot of stress to complete this repair before the weather freezes again. Also the working space is very small; I don't think I could have taken any meaningful photograph of the work area.


In my area, I couldn't find a replacement elbow, but did find a 6” flexible tubing with ½” male threads on each end … this allowed me, although awkwardly, to substitute the elbow, complete the connect and place my system back in use. No leaks and the pump switches off automatically now. The pump seems to switch off a bit slower than before which I suspect is a product of the plastic flex tubing, or may simply be my imagination because I am a bit cautious about the repair. I will get a new elbow soon to keep in anticipation that the plastic flex might someday fail … but, who knows! It might be forever good. I hope so, as I have large hands which made working in the very small space difficult.
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Old 01-20-2017, 01:35 PM   #5
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Thanks for posting back.
It helps add to the library of information on this forum.
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