As one of your fans, I have followed your advice on heads, holding tanks, etc. and have done pretty well in the elimination and smell departments on my previous boats. My 1999 Hunter 380 came with a standard Par Toilet and I have taken care of it knowing full well that It had a short life span. Naturally, during my recent cruise, it started leaking. It appears that in doing maintainence on it, I broke a plastic stud which hold the pump top and it started to leak. So an emergency run back to home port to exchange heads was in order. Now as I've said, being a fan of yours, I search the marine stores and found a Raritan PHII. Top quality Peggie says. I lug the head down to the boat, take out the old one (ugh), mop up, and start to install the new PHII. I don't want to change hoses at this time (I want to go cruising), so I ascertain that I should reverse the pump handle from right to left. NO WHERE in the advertisements or the instructions does it say you can do this. Only on the web which I found after I got home last night. But being a dumb male, I persists and start taking the head apart so I can change it 180 degrees. This means I have to take the bowl off and face it the other direction. I take the first two nuts off with some difficulty but the remaining two just won't turn. Maybe, I think, I need a Raritan PHIIRH (meaning it comes in right or left hand models). So this morning (this all happened yesterday) I get up at 5:30 AM for the time differntial. (and I'm retired), well closer to six and call Raritan--I picked the Florida office as they had a service department. I got a nice guy who tells me that, yes, the model can be reversed--just take the bolts off and turn it around. I tell him I can't get the damn bolts off! He tells me, yup, that has been a problem-- occasionally. If I can get them off, he will send me new ones. Why would I want to put on the same things that is causing me problems, I wonder. I don't know if I can get the suckers off and with the damage to the bolt heads, I doubt if the marine store will take it back. I do have a friend coming to help today who thinks he might grind them heads of the bolts off. Peggie, you need to talk to your friends at Raritan and have them up-grade the nuts and bolts area of their products. As Todd said, those bolts are put on with machines and they probably crossed theaded when installed. If I had to do this AFTER the head was installed, I would have had to take the whole system out to repair. Not a pleasant thought. Does Raritan have a person by the name of Murphy who works for them? On the lighter side, my 1917 Chapmans doesn't say anything about heads--oh for the good old days. Les
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Sorry you had problems...
I wish you'd asked before calling Raritan's FL plant, 'cuz I'd told you to call Vic Willman in the NJ plant. He knows how to solve problems nobody else does. Give him a call this morning...I've e-mailed him a copy of your post. 800-352-5630 x 2.
I wish you'd asked before calling Raritan's FL plant, 'cuz I'd told you to call Vic Willman in the NJ plant. He knows how to solve problems nobody else does. Give him a call this morning...I've e-mailed him a copy of your post. 800-352-5630 x 2.
Thanks, Peggie--On the road to recovery
Peggie, Thanks for your information. I did call Vic as you suggested to let him know that the situation is somewhat in hand. Yesterday a friend helped me to break the remaining bolts without damage to the rest of the toilet. I replaced them with good ones. I then put the parts back on and today, if a the straight outflow part arrives from Seattle, I'll be able to install the head and then it will be vacation time again. There are a number of positive things that come to mind. First, having you these last few years, including your articles, give advice has been educational. Make that very educational. As a retired professor, I have always thought that education could solve many of the problems of the world. In this case, I think you have done an admireable job of educating the boating public about heads and stuff!. For that I thank you. This morning's phone call to Vic was also very positive. Vic said that he has already talked to the Plant Manager and they are positive this problem won't surface again--it's actually an old problem and they knew about it. What makes me feel good is that someone listened to me and said, "we sorry you had this problem." "We'll fix it." It made me feel better. Vic's a nice guy. Strangly enough, there was another positive actiion that came out of all this. My friend, an engineer who use to work on Valiantes, came over and with box wrenches and some pipe to add leverage, broke the bolts clean off. I wouldn't have thought of that being a computer jockey. Learned something new. Do you know the definition of an Engineer? A pessimist would say that the glass is half empty. An optimist would say that the glass is half full. And an engineer would say that it is obvious that the glass is too big. Thanks again, Peggie. The Head Mistress solves another problem.
Peggie, Thanks for your information. I did call Vic as you suggested to let him know that the situation is somewhat in hand. Yesterday a friend helped me to break the remaining bolts without damage to the rest of the toilet. I replaced them with good ones. I then put the parts back on and today, if a the straight outflow part arrives from Seattle, I'll be able to install the head and then it will be vacation time again. There are a number of positive things that come to mind. First, having you these last few years, including your articles, give advice has been educational. Make that very educational. As a retired professor, I have always thought that education could solve many of the problems of the world. In this case, I think you have done an admireable job of educating the boating public about heads and stuff!. For that I thank you. This morning's phone call to Vic was also very positive. Vic said that he has already talked to the Plant Manager and they are positive this problem won't surface again--it's actually an old problem and they knew about it. What makes me feel good is that someone listened to me and said, "we sorry you had this problem." "We'll fix it." It made me feel better. Vic's a nice guy. Strangly enough, there was another positive actiion that came out of all this. My friend, an engineer who use to work on Valiantes, came over and with box wrenches and some pipe to add leverage, broke the bolts clean off. I wouldn't have thought of that being a computer jockey. Learned something new. Do you know the definition of an Engineer? A pessimist would say that the glass is half empty. An optimist would say that the glass is half full. And an engineer would say that it is obvious that the glass is too big. Thanks again, Peggie. The Head Mistress solves another problem.
Glad I could help...
I just wish I could "educate" more boat owners to ask questions FIRST...reading the manual first wouldn't hurt either.
I just wish I could "educate" more boat owners to ask questions FIRST...reading the manual first wouldn't hurt either.
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