When the plumbing leaked in the RV the toilet also overflowed with water. I had read that the valve often breaks in newer Thetford toilets so I ordered the kit, watched a couple of YouTube videos and took the pedal off the old toilet to fix it.
The pedal was difficult to fit back on. It turned out the spring that opens the flap was misaligned and while I was working on the pedal it popped off. I looked up how to reattach it and that’s when I found that the plastic notch for the spring had worn off. That was impossible to fix. In retrospect I don’t think the valve was bad on the old toilet. I think the pedal slipped off the spring so it was not raising and shutting off the water flow. As I tried to reinstall the pedal the spring would not fit in the recess in the pedal. As I maneuvered it the spring popped off entirely.
So I ordered a new toilet. We planned to go camping in a few days so I was in a hurry. I could not get one quickly on Amazon and the local Camping World was out of stock but one was available at a CW about 30 miles north of us. So I ordered it and drove up the next day.
I had read good things about the Dometic 310 toilet. Mostly because it has a porcelain bowl and is still lightweight because it sits on a plastic pedestal. The porcelain is easier to clean, it doesn’t stain with age. The bowl wash is distributed under the rim so flushing is more complete. I was surprised to see that the round bowl is a bit smaller than the Thetford so it takes up less space.
The toilet included the bolts, caps and foam ring but I used the existing bolts. It fit over them exactly but the water supply hose connected at the back of the Thetford and to the right of the new Dometic. The hose was too short. So I cut another hole for the hose with a hole saw.
The best part about the smaller footprint is the extra floorspace between the door and the sink.
I had the small bathroom heat duct removed to work under the drawer on the pex replacement. It has been replaced. The added floor space seems significant. The new toilet can use a regular toilet seat and it came with a wooden one.
When finishing up the install I used the old nut covers because they were smaller and easier to fit on the old bolts. It is a nice upgrade even though it was not planned.
