Doghouse Attachment Bolts Loose

[Hokieman]

While scooting around underneath my Oliver on my creeper greasing the chassis, I did a quick inspection of everything I could see.  I noticed one of the the two 3/8” stainless steel bolts that secure the propane tank enclosure to the hull was loose, had backed out about 1/2”.   Both of the bolt heads could be turned by hand, but could not be tightened externally, there are nuts on the other end that were spinning.   I turned in a service ticket and asked for DIY instructions.  Jason got back to me right away with 2  local RV repair centers that would fix it under warranty.   He also gave me step-by -step DIY instructions, which were easy to follow.   I prefer to do it myself, it was an easy task.   It involved removing the bath vanity to get to the nuts on the ends of the bolts.    The SS nuts had flat & lock washers, but obviously had not been tightened during production.  I replaced the 3/8” SS nuts with SS nylon lock nuts, and all is well.   While I was in there, I removed the toilet water supply line and valve, and capped off the tee it was connected to.    I have the NH composting toilet.   I also removed the black tank flush lines and back flow preventer, will save for a future owner that might want a flush toilet.   I opened up the black tank drain and found it had quite a bit of RV antifreeze inside.  Apparently  the factory had added it to the black tank during the winterizing process.    This was obviously not needed, but perhaps they do them all the  same, regardless.   So if you are underneath your trailer, you might give those bolts a quick check.  

[John E Davies]

Thanks for posting, did you take any pics of the flush toilet water line that you can share? I plan to disconnect mine eventually, but so far I never had a need to go digging around under that sink. If you did not already cap the black tank rinse through-hull fitting, do so, in case somebody tries to hook a garden hose up to it and floods the interior! That could be quite a geyser!

John Davies

Spokane WA

[Hokieman]

 I cut the blue PEX tube several inches after the tee into the water supply line to the sink.  Then I put a brass 1/2” PEX plug and crimped it with a copper ring.   I snipped off the toilet supply valve, and pushed the line thru the hole in the  fiberglass, and a 4’ section of blue PEX line slid right out.  Yes, I will cap off that outside connection to avoid user error.   I didn’t have a cap on hand, need to go to store.  By the way, the two white PEX lines you see in the photos are the flush lines, the same ones you already disconnected from the flush inlet and the other one on the black tank.   They lead to a brass backflow preventer underneath the countertop.   I pulled those out too, came right out easily.   You can also see the black tank vent line, it’s a 1.5” abs pipe that connects to the vent line going to the roof, right next to the composting toilet vent hose. 

[LongStride]

If anyone else finds that these bolts are loose, there is an easier fix.  

Rather than removing the vanity to access the head of the bolts for a holdback,  clamp a pair of vice grips on the threaded portion of the bolts and then tighten up the nuts.  If it were me, I would back off the nuts a tad so that I could put on some Locktite before snugging them down.  Obviously this will only work if the bolts are long enough like the ones in the photo.

Yes the vice grips will damage the threads, but it is unlikely that you would ever have the need to remove these particular fasteners.  If they ever had to be removed you would need to cut off the damaged portion to remove the nuts.

[John E Davies]

4 hours ago, LongStride said:

Yes the vice grips will damage the threads, but it is unlikely that you would ever have the need to remove these particular fasteners.  If they ever had to be removed you would need to cut off the damaged portion to remove the nuts.

Good idea. FYI, if the threads are buggered, you can easily snap a bolt in two, using a big breaker bar, or impact driver, as long as you can hold the other end very securely with a box end wrench or socket. They are not especially strong. I have done this to a 1/2" bumper bolt, where the nut seized solid. That is a little tougher, but doable. These little ones would snap easily. I won't use thread locker on any stainless bolt, it gets anti seize instead. 

John Davies
Spokane WA

[LongStride]

John, I have no issue using thread locker on a SS fastener that I never plan on removing.  If it were something critical that I still wanted to be able to remove if necessary sometime down the road, I would use anti-seize and double nut it.

I agree with you that 3/8" and smaller stainless bolts snap pretty easily.  However, I don't think that I would attempt that if the fastener was sandwiching  a fiberglass component that I did not want to damage.  I would use a cutoff wheel instead.

[Hokieman]

18 hours ago, Mike D. said:

 I cut the blue PEX tube several inches after the tee into the water supply line to the sink.  Then I put a brass 1/2” PEX plug and crimped it with a copper ring.

I changed my mind on this.  Initially I intended  to make it easy for a future owner to convert it back to a flush toilet.   But I didnt like it so I eliminated the tee and put in a straight coupler instead. 

[Hokieman]

11 hours ago, LongStride said:

Rather than removing the vanity to access the head of the bolts for a holdback,  clamp a pair of vice grips on the threaded portion of the bolts and then tighten up the nuts.

Slight misunderstanding on my post.   The threaded portion of the bolt is inside the vanity. 

[SeaDawg]

I see that in your photos, @Mike D.. 

Repair process totally depend on which side the bolts are fastened. 

Thanks.

[Jim and Chris Neuman]

No need to replace the bolt if you bugger the bolt threads, it is a simple matter to run a thread die down the bolt to clean up the mess. 

On stainless it is helpful to coat threads with an antisieze (I use lanolin) in order to help eliminate the galling that is common between stainless bolts and nuts.

[Hokieman]

 

1 hour ago, Jim and Chris Neuman said:

No need to replace the bolt if you bugger the bolt threads

I think you misunderstood this post.   No bolts were buggered or replaced, just tightened.  🙂