Broadway waterworks

I’m getting a bit racked off with this new bus of ours. We’re on holiday and the water system has gone down. To start with the system was working, but on Saturday the pump/valve started pulsing, so I dived under the offside seat to adjust the pressure switch. What a fiddle-faddle that is, with the adjuster now secreted away under the sparks box. Anyway, the hammering was sorted fine. 2 hours later, the water pump started on it’s own for no good reason. Whatever I do with the pressure switch makes no difference. Back to the dealer for yet another warranty job, on top of needing a replacement roof light because of water ingress between the panes. Does anyone do quality control at Willersey?

How much water have you got in your tank ? Our pump often runs unpredictably when the tank is less than 25 % full. 

Bear in mind that AS don’t make the pump, they only install it so really cannot be held responsible for malfunctions.

As you may have read on here, the pump behaves differently when on /off EHU. Usually a bit of fiddling with the pressure switch worked but we became fed up with it, and we’re concerned that if it broke the tank had to be dropped to fit a replacement. Costly and inconvenient job in the middle of a long trip. So, like others on here, we changed the pump for a Shuflo that works without problems. In our case the pressure switch was removed and the new pump put in it’s place in the offside locker. The cost, of about £250, was predominantly labour, as I understand the pump only costs about £50ish.

Might be worth a friendly chat with your dealer to see if you can get this done more cheaply as your van is so new.

I could never adjust the pump on our Broadway FB properly. Our dealer had a go but said it was almost impossible to get it right so it worked on and off EHU correctly. He suggested an anti surge / damper unit that fits in the water line.
It made a huge difference to ours, very rarely did I need to adjust the pressure valve after that.

This is it,  https://www.camperlands.co.uk/downloads/whale-surgedamper-instructions.pdf

It might be a faulty non-return valve. We had to have ours replaced and the dealer said that they often failed before even getting a new van into the customers's hands.

Pump running intermittent with no water being drawn is either a leak somewhere or the non return valve allowing pressure to drop as water leaks back into the tank. As it was working you may have been unlucky and got a bit  of grit or dirt stuck in the valve disc . It is not difficult to clean and can be done in 5 mins using a pozi  screwdriver to remove and clean . Check out other posts on the subject for some good photos of the dismantled valve.

kaspian wrote:Pump running intermittent with no water being drawn is either a leak somewhere or the non return valve allowing pressure to drop as water leaks back into the tank. As it was working you may have been unlucky and got a bit  of grit or dirt stuck in the valve disc . It is not difficult to clean and can be done in 5 mins using a pozi  screwdriver to remove and clean . Check out other posts on the subject for some good photos of the dismantled valve.

Thanks for that Kaspian, the posts that show the dismantled non-return valve are a big help, along with the methods for priming the pump after emptying the tank and draining down. I'm taking the van in for a warranty fix soon (replacing failed main rooflight) and the water will be looked at then anyway, but I'll bear this forum's useful info in mind for next time. As it happens, the pressure switch has to be replaced because the part of the body that retains the micro switch is broken. I suspect that the plastic sideplates that hold the micro switch were cracked during assembly and one has subsequently fallen off. That causes the pump to run constantly of course, but is just pushing air, even with a 100% full tank. Knowing what I do now, having read the other posts, leads me to suspect the non return valve.

One learns a little something every day.....