T-handle pulled out from waste gate—black tank full

[AdamKY]

About to leave tomorrow for home after our first week long family camping trip in our 2016 Keystone TT. Went to dump wastewater today and the t-handle, which was very tight earlier in the week, pulled completely out, and the gate stayed closed.

My tank is almost full. I’m fairly handy and it would be no problem for me to swap the gate once the line was drained—but I’m at a loss at how I can get the gate open before I leave—or even when I get home without a nasty mess.

The tip is not threaded—it just has a indent machined about 1/4” from the end. I tried pushing back on and rotating but that didn’t work either so I’m thinking the plastic female cavity in the gate is broken.

Has anyone run into this? Any short term ideas to open the gate or other ideas for how I can sanitarily repair when I’m no longer hooked up?

One thought I had was to run to hardware store and see if I could find a 6” screw (like a gutter screw, drill out that diameter up to gate, and then screw it into the gate about an inch or so and try pulling out then.

Anyway, any thoughts you have I would appreciate it.

[Canonman]

Maybe I was lucky, but my T handle rethreaded after several tries.
You might need to open (3 sided cut) the coroplast under the TT to find the connector for the T handle.
When re-attaching, use a little loc-tite to make sure this doesn't happen again:)

[AdamKY]

Thanks for the reply, but just to clarify, it is higher than he threated T-Handle rod connection. It is the rod that actually goes into the blast gate and at that end, there is no thread.

[AdamKY]

If my upload works, here is a pic of what I’m talking about (not mine, but found a pic on another thread that is similar).

[Canonman]

Darn!! Bad luck. I think you're going to have to access the gate valve. Still might be repairable though. Chuckster57 might have some thoughts on this.

[Steveo57]

I think others who have had this problem have been able to cut away enough of the valve body to allow you to grab on to the valve disc and pull it open with some plyers. The valve is getting replaced anyways so what do you have to lose!

[chuckster57]

Remove enough screws from the coroplast to access the blade valve. Try needle nose pliers to open. Make sure you rinse SEVERAL time before replacing.

3 different assemblies: Valterra, Valterra Bladex and Bristol.

Bladex will replace both Valterra’s
Bladex must be replaced with Bladex
Bristol must be replaced with Bristol.

[AdamKY]

Thanks to all who weighed in. Got a new gate and installed this am. Cut the blade housing out with sawzall and pulled blade out with pliers and it drained (mostly). Luckily me dad has a septic tank that my camper can reach. Pulled the old gate out and installed a new one, although it wasn’t as easy as that because the clearance was terrible and it was very difficult to spread due to other waste lines running into a Y making it very rigid. Without clearance it was hard to get the rubber gaskets to seat properly. I ended up having to hold the axel and push the black tank with my feet to get enough clearance to slide the new gate in. I suppose a spreader clamp would also work but I had left mine at home.

All and all not a difficult repair but the clearance and constant drip of waste water made me not in a hurry to do it again any time soon.

[davedwards]

Hey Adam, thanks for posting this. I have a passport 2510RB travel trailer and while camping this weekend, with the black tank about 70-80% full, I went to pull the handle and it popped right out in my hand. Just exactly like yours, only a detent at the end. I went to lowes and bought a 24" 1/4x20 threaded rod hoping I could maybe thread it into the blade housing but after 45 minutes of trying, no luck.I have just returned home with a tank full of mess! On my camper, only the shaft and handle of the valve poke through the coroplast bottom. I know I'm looking at a new valve install, but tell me if you will the details on how you were able to get the valve open. I know you had to get a pair of needle nose on the blade itself but how did you cut the housing in order to get the pliers to it? Thanks