History
Our 1999 King of the Road Crown Marquis came with a Thetford Aqua
Magic Aurora.. yeah, that one. It has been a good toilet but has never really sealed quite right. The sliding door mechanism of the bowl has always been a bit cantankerous often sticking partially open or not quite closing water tight. Sometimes it has been a real stinker about it.I have replaced the seals a couple of times. I also replaced the water inlet valve when it started leaking around the valve stem. Several times I have had it on the workbench and completely apart trying to make it work cleanly and make a tight seal. Plumbers silicone grease on the sliding door and gaskets has helped but it made operations a bit stiff for awhile.
CRC Heavy Duty Silicone spray has also helped a lot for shorter periods but the whole mechanism has just plain worn out.
A big factor has been mineral buildup on the mating surfaces of the door and seals. It gets rough and crusty, preventing a tight seal and over time this destroys the seals. The costs of replacing all the parts necessary to restore full reliability would be about those of a new toilet
I also have wanted an RV toilet with a truly elongated bowl and seat for more comfort and convenience. A slight increase in height would be nice, too.
So for some time we have been looking for the right replacement toilet. Although I eventually ended up buying the replacement online, shopping for what would work took a lot of hands on measurements with a tape measure and test sitting in Camping World and other RV shops. Above all else I wanted the replacement to just always work as well as being fanny friendly.
The Solution
The good news is that I got it with free shipping at a very discounted price. The less-good news is that the one that came was defective, ugh!
A Glitch
Unlike most RV toilets, the mating of the ceramic bowl to the plastic pedestal is done at the factory and is not field serviceable so if any leak ever develops between them, it is a guaranteed toilet replacement. Well, after about 2 weeks use, this one started leaking on one side. During the installation I had noticed a slight amount of movement between the bowl and the pedestal on that side. It turns out that one of the retaining toggles stripped during tightening and never got tightened enough at the factory.I contacted Dometic and they sent me to Sealand support which handles all of their brand toilet issues. I was pleasantly surprised when they asked about 3 questions and then wanted my address to send out a replacement – 2 day shipping.
She said that I must destroy the old toilet and dispose of it locally after removing all of the field replaceable parts, like the water valve, hand sprayer and toilet seat.
As promised, the replacement came in about a day and a half (business time but this was on a Friday) and I quickly put it in place. I stripped the parts from the original 320 and put them in my RV spare parts bin in the shed.
That was a few months ago and we are still loving this Dometic 320. I opted for it over the slightly cheaper 310 because of the longer bowl option. This one came with a hand sprayer included which is something that we had never had before but thought it would make some cleaning chores easier. it does!
I will say that the gushing flush of the Aquamagic Aurora was more satisfying than this almost dribbling flush of the 320. But a short prefill done before a serious flush puts a bit more water in the bowl and gives a totally satisfactory flush. The hand sprayer can quickly double the amount of water filling the bowl on a preflush fill for a better overall wash down.
Installation
Now that this history is out of the way, I will talk about the actual installation process a bit.The Dometic (Sealand) 320 is pretty much a direct replacement for the Thetford Aquamagic Aurora. Specs for the mounting position and waste pipe are the same so it did just bolt in place. However, the water inlet was a bit different and took some modifications before it would mate up to the new toilet.
First off, I have long wanted to have a behind the toilet shutoff for the freshwater supply to it. There have been times, such as when cleaning and lubricating the seals that the water needed to be off while the toilet bowl valve was wide open. Also, if a leak did develop while out in the boonies, a way to shut off all water to the toilet without impacting the rest of the RV plumbing would be really helpful. I had this scenario happen when the water valve on the Aquamagic started failing. It was a real pain to have to keep running outside to shut off the water supply between flushes and no one could even wash their hands.
I chose a short valve with a quarter turn shutoff to insert into the water line just above the floor. Due to the higher and slightly off center inlet fitting on the toilet I added a short supply line to mate them together.The result turned out to be a lot of work but was definitely worth it when the bowl started leaking a few weeks later. We could keep the bowl empty of standing water until time came to flush, fill it, flush it and then shut off the water and empty the bowl dry.
Next, I had to mate the valve to the toilet inlet and compensate for the offset in the process.
I used a Watts 3/8-in Compression 12-in PVC Faucet Supply Line
to do this by creating a loop from the inlet valve to the toilet. This allows for a change of height and offset as well as providing a slight damper for the rather abrupt shutoff of the toilet filling valve.Here is the problem:
and here is the solution:
Not an inelegant solution and really not visible unless one is looking for it.
The RV runs and the toilet doesn’t. We are happy campers.
ttfn
Budd
