eric@babin.com

2014 Itasca Ellipse 42QD Thetford Tecma toilet Symptom: Push flush button, water enters bowl, when it's time for pump to macerate there is an electrical draw and slight thump noise. Controller on wall flashes red triangle and water level blinks yellow to green alternately. Called Thetford customer service at:1-800-543-1219 Basically no help other than to send me a troubleshooting guide that talked a lot about voltage checking. I was confident it was not a voltage issue so I used a Youtube video to show me how to remove and take apart the toilet to check pump for blockage. There are plenty of videos, but I used this one: One difference on my toilet was there was a hard black PVC pipe coming out of the floor about 8" to the pump discharge hose. This meant I had to spin the toilet clockwise after removing the 4 bolts holding it to the floor. This allowed me to access the rear opening of the toilet to disconnect plumbing and wiring. Once plumbing and wiring was disconnected I was able to lift the toilet straight up to get it over that hard pipe. I removed the pump and bench tested it. It did not turn. I took the pump apart and there it was.... a SOCK stuck in the macerator area. This must have happened as my wife was emptying the drying, which is right above the toilet. Removed sock, bench test sat. One thing I didn't do was put caulk between toilet and floor. I don't think it is necessary. One note of caution: when putting the bolts back to secure the toilet to the floor, be careful of torq. This is porcelain and can crack with too much torq.

Today's update / maybe the final? We were going to take a test drive today to see if we would be able to get it to the shop to check the air leak, and then worry about leveler issues later. Started coach, it took a very long time to come up to ride height...... maybe about 5-6 minutes..... but it did. Of course, as mentioned, I had previously raised jacks manually so we would have to worry about that today.... but jacks still showed "jacks down" via the warning light. Wife says, "just check the levelers, see what happens, you know how to raise them manually if you have to". Turned on leveler control pad.... sure enough they show "jacks down" but they are not. I push "retract" and you can hear it struggling to raise since they are already up. It doesn't give me any fault code and now shows "jacks up". OK... .that is good.... shall we be bold enough to try to level? Sure..... and, guess what..... it worked, fully leveled and shows "success". OK..... but what about that pesky air leak? I can't hear any leak...... no leak? Yep..... no apparent leak. Maybe it was the house batteries that needed to be replaced? Either way, things are working normal..... .for now.

Yes..... I'm thinking maybe a bad pressure switch? I'm contacting Lipper this week to troubleshoot. Yes, fluid level is full.

No. This is LCI / Lippert. No springs.

Today's update: House batteries have been replaced. We started coach to see if we still had an air leak and if the jacks would work properly. Jacks began to work correctly, from the 1/2 up position, the air bags filled, and the jacks retracted. It did sound noisier than normal, but my wife said it was normal sounding. One thing that was strange is when they were fully retracted, as normal you could hear the pump struggle, but usually that is when it stopped and moves on to the next jack. This time the "struggle" sound continued longer than normal, much longer. All jacks did retract. We tried to level at that point, the jacks seemed to work, once all were grounded and it tried to level, we got the "can't complete level" code. We then tried to retract. The airbags emptied, the front began to retract.... very very slowly, but after raising about 4 or 5 inches I got the "return for service" fault. I can clear the code by pressing "enter" and "retract" buttons but the code returns when I try to retract again. I've manually retracted via opening valves and putting power drill on pump. All jacks are up, but still getting "Jacks down" alarm. I am not low on fluid.

The airbags do fully inflate and raises to normal ride height. The leak sounds very faint. I will contact him to get some advice. Thank you!

Today's update: Guy from Triad came out to look at air leak. We got error code on jacks so we ended up having to send him away since we ended up not being able to fill the bags and recreate the leak. Right now we are pretty sure the jack issue is due to house batteries needing replacement. We're on the original batteries from 2014. (and we've been full timing in it since 2018). Just ordered 6 batteries, exact replacement NAPA 8831DT. Good news, I suppose, is NAPA is offering 20% off right now, which saved $451! Once we get those replaced we'll try leveling system again. If that works, we may try to limp into the repair facility.

Update February 10: I have a guy coming take a look at it Monday Feb12. I'll keep everyone updated.

2014 Itasca Ellipse 42QD We live in coach full time. We've been stationary for just over two months. When we are stationary for more than a month we always start it up, pull slides in, level, then let slides back out. We do this so we have no surprises when it's time to pull out for a trip. (Well, to minimize the surprises). Today was our day to start, relevel, and set back up. We have noticed the passenger side of the coach has always had the air suspension come up slower than the driver's side. In November it actually took about 5 minutes. Today it was going slow, and didn't quite get to it's normal height, and was significantly lower than the driver's side, especially in the front. At that time, with engine still running, I noticed we had some sort of air leak coming from the passenger rear axle area, not the tag axle, the one right in front of it. It won't let me attach a video, but the leak is coming from the inside area at the rear axle (not tag) on the passenger side. When I turned the engine off, air leak continued for a couple of minutes. We then leveled and the leak stopped. We then retracted levelers, bags filled, and I no longer heard an air leak, although, as usual, passenger side took longer to come up. Brake air gauge steady at 110psi. We aren't traveling until April so we have a little time. Any thoughts on what the leak could be? I'd assume it's not an airbag since it didn't seem to leak the second time we retracted levelers. Maybe pressure relief valve got stuck open? Other ideas? Here is a link to the video that I shared on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/reel/792627659547761

It's a rear radiator I'll have to climb under there... and look to see if there is a hose right there.

So I have coolant flowing out from the coils. Any chance it could be a busted hose behind the coils spraying through or damaged coils. We haven't traveled in about 2 months and started the RV to relevel today and got the low coolant code. You can see a little dent in the coils so maybe I threw a rock up while mowing? Link to video: https://www.facebook.com/1460845187/videos/1081877406105850

I replaced it today..... If it does it again then we know for sure it's the controller module in the back of the toilet. We do live in it full time so that switch get's a lot of work. I'll update later if it does it again. (if the switch/button replacement wasn't the answer)

There have been two separate times in which I hit the small flush button that the macerator continued to run. Normally it only runs about 1 second. These two times it ran continuously even after the water had stopped flowing. It finally stopped after I mashed the button a few times. The first time I actually got a screwdriver and pulled the switch control off the wall only to see it's an enclosed back. There is no place to disconnect it at the switch / button housing. I am fairly certain that half of the switch is in the process of failing. My question is this.... The back of the switch housing is closed, not able to open up, with wires within a gray insulated housing leading to the wiring harness near the end. Looks like the wiring harness is pretty basic.... one black, one red. There is no way I'll be able to fish this wire and harness through the wall. I'm thinking I could just cut the wires near the switch housing, and splice in the new switch / buttons. Here is a link to the part: https://www.fisheriessupply.com/thetford-tecma-plus-double-button-wall-switch/36387 Anyone think I may run into a problem doing that?

It was stuck in the down position. I rolled it up like a poster then used 3 Irwin quick release hand clamps. Would have been great if I could manually roll it back up on it's own roller but due to the position it's at it would be very difficult without taking it all the way down.

We just have electric on the windshield. All others are manual. No telephone type connector. We did try to shut everything down / batteries etc. to reboot.... Didn't help.