Head inlet plumbing and rebuild notes 32-3

[Puget sailor]

Just finished rebuilding the Raritan ph2 head on my 32-3. This is the original pre-1992 model, but there is now a universal rebuild kit which includes the parts for pre plus post 1992 versions. There are also kits available that only do one or the other. Be careful! Availability was an issue, but a place called Marine San in Seattle, which sells nothing but marine heads and parts not only had the part, they were also cheaper than other sources. They shipped it same day.

My bowl and discharge parts were disgustingly coated with huge amounts of caked on vacuum deposits. The joker valve was not able to seal because of all the deposits, so the bowl could not be dried, and the crud went quite a ways up. Chipping with screwdriver interspersed with white vinegar soaking, and scrubbing with Barkeepers Friend cleanser, brought it back to like new, amazingly. The latter product is a cleanser with Oxalic acid powder. Works amazing on rust stains, and metal marks, such as the screwdriver lines on the porcelain. Also does a nice job on stainless sinks.

I was perplexed for a while at the lack of water flow into the bowl on flush mode after rebuilding. I studied the layout and concluded the vented loop between the through hull and the pump was a mistake by a prior owner, if not Ericson? It allows too much air to be sucked in through the loop’s tiny duckbill vent during fill strokes to really put much water through the bowl. Doing a little research I came to see that a vented loop is a good idea to avoid bowl flooding, but it needs to go between the pump and bowl, not between the through hull and pump. How it survived this way for so long is a mystery. Not the last one on this boat, no doubt!

 

[Loren Beach]

Thanks for talking about a boat problem that seldom gets enough attention.
The need (or not) for a vented loop on in intake (outside water) seems to be forever controversial. Our '88 model did not have a vented loop on water coming in, nor on the waste going out.
{The later may be less and less of an issue in the coming years as more and more boats have only a holding tank to pump into and seldom/never use a direct-overboard discharge scheme.}

The folks at Marine Sanitation in Seattle are indeed the experts, and have been a good source of info for decades.
Our '88 boat came with a well used Raritan PH2 head and since in a past life this boat was used/sailed hard, we opted to replace the whole head back in the 90's. Then about a decade ago I replaced it again. While it's cheaper to rebuilt it, it's the one mechanical part of the boat that I have zero interest in getting close to very often if I do not have to.

Currently I am upgrading the head to the elongated ("household size, sort of') bowl. This project led to remounted the whole thing forward about 1.5" due to the closeness of the bulkhead. A little tedious, but not that hard. Like many projects though, it does reveal the risk of "fixing something that ain't broken."

Then I found that the exit 1.5" hose had to also have the place in the cabinet moved forward byt the same amount. And then... found that the selector valve inside the cabinet started to seep water when I water-tested the operation with the reformatted head assembly. Evidently jerking the hose attachments around while removing them from the barbs offended that device.

Worse yet, by far, the plastic joker valve fitting that is held onto the pump refuses to seal around the base of the new joker valve. I bought a new one because sometimes the old one would not allow some back flooding into the base of the bowl. All this is part of the pump assembly I bought. Even with my discount sources, these are rather spendy parts.

And, all of this futzing around has revealed that the new plastic part that clamps the joker will flex slightly and refuse to seal. Tested only with water up to now, fortunately.

Conversations with a tech @ Raritan have been cordial but unhelpful. Their whole take on this problem is that owners over-tighten the flange and slightly warp the part that is supposed to seal. They do not admit that there might be a problem with the design or their QC. From some searching on other sailing forums, there are quite a few owners with the same concern, and their complaints have been brushed off (flushed away?), also. Frustrating Situation.

IF..... there was a better head alternative I might try it, but the cheaper competitor is the Par/Jabsco head, and we had one of those on our prior boat and their design was terrible and newer versions seem to get poor press as well.

Not a pleasant topic, but do let us know how this all works out, and any details you can provide.

 

[Puget sailor]

Amusing you mention that joker valve clamp flange, mine leaked immediately. I had ordered a brand new elbow and flange plate, for lack of a better term, because I was not sure the crust that had formed behind the joker would dissolve. It did though, so now I have a spare. Mine leaked because I forgot I left it finger tight to allow for angle adjustment of the elbow. Then I tightened it down “too tight” in response, which flexes the plate into a disturbing arc, but it’s sealing ok. But I went to bed last night thinking I should back it off until it just starts to leak, then tighten only slightly, or that thing will crack at some awkward moment. I was also fantasizing about a stainless or aluminum backing flange made up to sit behind the plastic one, but the pump base itself is not that strong either, so that could be a mistake too.

I did notice that the previous owner had a couple spare joker valves, and noted on the bag they are stored in that the rubber flanges that form the seal on those are “too thick”, and indeed they are thicker than the original. But even the new one from Raritan is thick enough to hold the clamp plate out by the thickness of a quarter, which allows for the over tightening error.

I agree, the Jabsco option seems inferior in several ways. And I have to say, even though the Raritan has a contraption aspect to it, it is 37 years old, and still perfectly viable with new seals which are still available.

I opted to rebuild rather than seek alternatives for now, because I really want to completely update the entire head space to be more like what one finds in every airliner, a nice clean simple easy to wash down space with a toilet that any guest could work without a science lesson! Having the big sink base in there makes no sense. Heck, the galley sink is closer to the toilet than the sink to toilet distance in my bathroom at home. Get rid of all that and have a decent space for a vacu-flush head and make everything else out of corian or something. Maybe have a flip out mini sink behind the toilet if there is even a need at all? At minimum a shower hose for washing down the whole head space.

Another thing I’d like to investigate, modern low flow dual flush toilets are very efficient and actually work quite well and have human sized bowls. At 1.28 gallons for a full flush and maybe half that for a partial flush, is that really much more than 15 pumps of the Raritan handle to clear the bowl and the lines to the holding tank? The waste would have to flow into a small pump tank, in order to be a gravity flow situation, but plausible and potentially much quieter in the middle of the night than a vacuflush.

For the week ahead I’m going to block off the intake loop vent, and make sure the head is always set to “dry” position which should effectively prevent any siphon flow anyway. Not fool proof, but there is also a spring check valve in there, and I suspect little if any water will push past that from gravity pressure alone.

It’s easy to see why this part of the boat gets so little attention until there’s a problem, but having a clean pleasant head would be a huge upgrade for sailing with friends and family who are not into all the deprivations of the sailing life. Personally, I think L. Francis Herreshoff had it right when sinking the praises of a good bucket…

Marine Sanitation has an impressive “showroom”
And I plan to spend some time exploring it during Seattle’s rainy season that lies “ahead”

 

[Loren Beach]

I was also fantasizing about a stainless or aluminum backing flange made up to sit behind the plastic one,

I am going to fab up one out of some G10 scrap, soon. 1/4" aluminum might also be good but it's somewhat harder to machine.

 

[Puget sailor]

While reinstalling and trouble shooting I kept thinking of Loren’s intent to make up a backing plate for the joker valve elbow clamp plate. And I kept walking past the spare I ordered since my original elbow was so caked with crust inside. And then I had an a-ha moment. With 2” bolts instead of the original 1.5” screws, I could use TWO clamp plates for double the stiffness and no fabrication. It worked great even with two plates there is still some flex, but it really feels much better.




The extra plate came with the new elbow from Marine Sanitation. It was cheap, maybe 15 bucks or so, but essentially free because when I added it to my cart with the pump kit, the shipping became free. Highly recommended. The ideal bolt length is more like 2.25 inches, but that was not available at the hardware store, and this seemed good enough to not bother cutting one custom. I used the original nuts, I think it was a 3/8 x 16 threads per inch bolt, in my case.

Another crucial upgrade I made was to the pump shaft seal. According to the boat logs, it’s leaked ever since new despite multiple rebuilds over the years. I suspect it’s just a design flaw, the shaft is smooth enough and not worn. My universal rebuild kit came with a new seal design for post 1992 pumps and the pre 1992 pumps. I noticed the post 1992 seal, though much smaller (too small imho) has an o-ring integrated into the seal to keep pressure on the tiny lip. I decided to retrofit an o-ring to the larger pre-1992 seal to do the same thing. It actually worked! I used a socket as a driver to tap the retaining star nut down very firmly to squeeze the seal assembly. I don’t have a picture, but the seal has a channel facing the water side. The water pressure is expected to compress the seal lip against the shaft, but there is not enough pressure when pumping for it to really work. The added pressure on that lip provided by the o ring, which gets squished in that groove, does the trick. Here is the o-ring I used, after sampling the offerings at Ace Hardware for a plausible one:


After meddling with this thing for the better part of a day, I’m tempted to launch a go fund me campaign to design a better pump design. The concept of the Raritan is good, the execution leaves much to be desired, though kudos to them for making it durable and serviceable and supporting units that are decades old. But the laurels they seem to resting on are more like dried flowers, which might help the aroma in that head!