Dometic Toilet -broken flush mechanism

[Galway Girl]

Stepped on our Dometic 311 flush valve and it popped off.  Upon inspection the flush mechanism can be worked by hand (eew) but it sheared the center pivot shaft.  Dometic said…no part for that…so I have a new toilet on order to be delivered to our RV park while we are in Moab this week.

I’ll paste in pix of the repair later on this thread. 
 

Anyone else had that flush (step on) mechanism shear off?

[Mike and Carol]

1 hour ago, Galway Girl said:

Anyone else had that flush (step on) mechanism shear off?

No!

[Geronimo John]

Several have had the flush shaft break.  Several posts on that topic.

For a 25 cent part we get to replace our entire toilet.  

Not an impressive Dometic decision not to stock basic repair parts for ALL their toilets.  

GJ

[SeaDawg]

 

[Galway Girl]

Here’s the part that broke on our Dometic 311 toilet, and the repair process.

Foot Flush lever - broken center shaft.  No Dometic repairable parts.  Note, we could still manually reach down and flush the toilet as temporary work around.

 

10 steps in the repair 

1) ordered a new Dometic model 311 toilet with slow close heavy duty lid.

Opened and inspected new fixture to assure all parts are there and no damage.

Dometic Model: 311  

Mfg#: 302311681  

Amazon $261.00

Note: It comes with new seal already installed on bottom of toilet and new T bolts, nuts and plastic covers.

2) Turn off water valve behind toilet & flush toilet and inspect no water in bowl  or clinging items down drain.  Remove water supply line on bottom/back of toilet.

3) pop off plastic caps from mounting bolts on both sides of the toilet with flat blade screw driver.

4) use 7/16 wrench to remove the 2 toilet mounting bolts.

5) pull toilet straight up then pivot back out of bathroom. 

6) on the mounting ring, remove existing t slot bolts and clean mounting ring and seal mating surface.  If mounting flange has no cracks or breaks, then continue.
 (If you have cracks you can buy a steel toilet flange repair ring that mounts on top  of the existing plastic body.)

7) insert new T slot bolts into flange so they are parallel to the front of the shower pan. ( 3 and 9 o’clock)

😎 Lower new toilet down over mounting bolts. The toilet will not be fully down on surface until you tighten the bolts.

9) use 7/16” wrench to tighten bolts alternating from one side then the other to compress the seal.  Don’t over tighten either side, just slowly tighten until the toilet is flush with floor all around the base.

10) hook up water and test flush checking for any leaks around toilet base or water lines.

This took me 30 minutes.
 

 

The RV Park in Moab we were at let me ditch the old toilet in the shipping box in their dumpster.

We are back to foot flushing. 

As an added benefit, our new toilet has a very substantial slow close lid. 

[Steve Morris]

What is causing this part to break? Age?

I ask, because prior to getting the Oliver in March, we’d never had a trailer with a toilet. In order to minimize water use, we rapidly push down the pedal and let it spring back up on its own. I’m starting to think that might be asking for trouble! 😳

[MAX Burner]

Our 311 came with a chintzy light weight lid that just feels "cheep".  Know what I'm saying?  I'm liking the concept of a HD/slow closing lid - can that part be ordered separately from Dometic?  

[BigTexas]

This also happened to me when I flushed the toilet not realizing the pipes were still frozen.  Non replicable part. 

I first tried to glue it with a special "epoxy plastic glue".  Worked for about three days.  Did the same as others and ordered a new toilet, scavenged the useful parts I needed and discarded the rest of the toilet (what a waste for such a small part)

After discussing the problem with a friend, he suggested searching the web for a 3D printing file of the part.  He mentioned a lot of small parts like this get scanned and the files are posted to the web.  Then one can have it printed locally (or he offered to do it for me)  I know nothing of 3D printing how it works or what it takes to create a file for a small part but if someone had the knowledge and resources to create such a file, they would be making an immense contribution to mankind; or at least to those of us who had to learn the art of hand flushing the toilet.

[SeaDawg]

On 9/28/2023 at 5:29 PM, Steve Morris said:

What is causing this part to break? Age?

I ask, because prior to getting the Oliver in March, we’d never had a trailer with a toilet. In order to minimize water use, we rapidly push down the pedal and let it spring back up on its own. I’m starting to think that might be asking for trouble! 😳

We've been doing similar for 15 years. Different toilet. 

I think this is inherent to a particular model.

[ScubaRx]

On 9/28/2023 at 4:29 PM, Steve Morris said:

What is causing this part to break? Age?

I ask, because prior to getting the Oliver in March, we’d never had a trailer with a toilet. In order to minimize water use, we rapidly push down the pedal and let it spring back up on its own. I’m starting to think that might be asking for trouble! 😳

I push down the pedal with my foot but NEVER let it snap back up. I agree with you, that might be asking for trouble!

[Galway Girl]

I assume the shaft snapped due to our letting the pedal snap back every so often.  I’m no longer doing that with the new one.  The slow close lid can be ordered separately on Amazon or from various trailer parts stores.  The 310 series of toilets includes the model 311 which was what we replaced.

 

The Oliver Outfitters Guide has both the lid and the whole toilet listed now. 
 

Oliver Outfitters Guide

[SeaDawg]

If the system is designed to "snap back" , it should, imo, do so without problems. If you're supposed to keep your foot on it, and release slowly,  the manual should say so. Otherwise,  I still believe it's a design flaw.

Never an issue (yet) with my 16 year old Thetford.

I guess we could replace ours with a true marine toilet (raritan) , which requires a lot of work...every flush is a lot of hand pumping. Super reliable on our boat. Much more expensive than cheaper rv toilets . They also last 30 to 40 years....

If/when our toilet dies, I'll probably just get another thetford. I won't l8kely outlive a ratitan.

Kind of laughing, because we are troubleshooting a very expensive Toto, in one of our home bathrooms. Looks like about $100 in parts will fix the tiny drip our Phyn detection system tells us we have. At least, there are parts available.  That toilet. I'd hate to give up because of a few parts. As toilets go, it's rather pretty.  And waterwise. And, expensive to replace.

Replacement part numbers are stamped in the toilet tank in the Toto. How cool is that?