Fresh and waste water tank drain taps

Advice required folks.

We were told that the drain taps would need to be replaced before we bought our Topaz and our seller had been advised by his local garage that the job wouldn’t cost more than around £100 (an amount which he fairly deducted from the price he was asking).

I’ve finally gotten around to having a good look at them this morning and it appears that the tanks will need to be dropped in order to replace the taps as I’m guessing they’re secured by a large fixing nut on the inside.

Has anyone else attempted this and if so am I thinking along the right lines?

Finally, would anyone know if the one closest to the near side is the grey or fresh one? This tap is loose in the tank body so is dripping. If it’s grey I can put a bowl under it for our first trip out this weekend; If it’s fresh we’ll need to take some water with us in a separate container!

Any help offered will be gratefully received (the written type - I’m not expecting Frederic to rock up this evening with his spanner’s )

Thanks y’all.

Hi Ian,

My problem was old taps that were going brittle + so small that the waste, from full was a 10mins plus job to empty.

Same thing, nut on the inside. I closed them up and sealed them.

I then bought 2"'barrel' type tap for the waste tank, went to the other end of the tank and using a hole cutter drilled a hole as low/accessable on the side of the tank as possible.
 
The thread on the barrel tap is bigger than the 2" hole cutter. I rasped the hole large enough so the tap thread just self tapped in. Cleaned out bits as best as possible.

Plenty of a sealing mastic on the threads and fitting, I used some stuff that holds metal/anything together roughing the plastic tank for better grip.

On the fresh water side I drilled/replace the tap with a normal modern blue one. As before plenty of mastic glue.

On my van the taps were remote from the tank, fitted in the side skirts via a pipe, so I just pluged the holes with decorative caps and all looks ok.

Waste empties very well now.

We know how much clean/waste water is used, so balance it out.

For cooking/drinking we use a seperate container of fresh water, tank water only for washing etc.

Have fun!


Cheers

Boots

Thanks for the very comprehensive reply Boots! I can envisage how that would work.

We’ve also tended to carry clean drinking water with us separately in our previous coachbuilt so yes, think we’ll carry in with that process.

I’ll stick some fresh water through the filler and if it doesn’t pour out of the near side tank I’ll presume the inboard one is the fresh!