How to drain a black tank on the interstate

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   I recently went on a 5000 mile trip with my 171. While innocently tooling down the highway in Nevada, concentrating on traffic down the road, I was startled by a loud BANG! Looking in the rear view mirror, I was intrigued to see a foggy mist surrounding the back of my R-Pod. Simultaneously, my wife told me that I had run over a shed truck tire tread.
Stopping, I found that the black water valve was obviously ruined and that the cap of my sewer outlet was missing. On the good side, I didn't have to worry about dumping the black tank for a while. Not being the philosophical type, I decided further investigation was pointless and continued down the road an hour to my next destination, where I replaced the black water valve easily and neatly (not) and also got a new sewer pipe cap.

My question - 

Should I install some type of guard under the frame in front of the sewer outlet to protect against this sort of damage in the future?

More basically, does this sort of thing only happen to me??

Comments are appreciated.

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Happy Tripping Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: 27 May 2014 Online Status: Offline Posts: 473	Topic: How to drain a black tank on the interstate Posted: 15 Jun 2015 at 1:41pm
	I recently went on a 5000 mile trip with my 171. While innocently tooling down the highway in Nevada, concentrating on traffic down the road, I was startled by a loud BANG! Looking in the rear view mirror, I was intrigued to see a foggy mist surrounding the back of my R-Pod. Simultaneously, my wife told me that I had run over a shed truck tire tread. Stopping, I found that the black water valve was obviously ruined and that the cap of my sewer outlet was missing. On the good side, I didn't have to worry about dumping the black tank for a while. Not being the philosophical type, I decided further investigation was pointless and continued down the road an hour to my next destination, where I replaced the black water valve easily and neatly (not) and also got a new sewer pipe cap. My question - Should I install some type of guard under the frame in front of the sewer outlet to protect against this sort of damage in the future? More basically, does this sort of thing only happen to me?? Comments are appreciated.

TigerPawd Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 04 Feb 2015 Location: Corpus Christi Online Status: Offline Posts: 68	Posted: 15 Jun 2015 at 4:48pm
	You are not alone, although it's been 25 years since it happened to us. We never knew what did the damage and fortunately, the tank was almost empty. I replaced the damaged plumbing as you did, and when we got back home, I hauled the TT 50 miles back to the dealer, who made a nice guard using angle iron. When we got our Surveyor, I had that dealer make an almost identical cage/guard. Have never had a problem since, although once, I noticed that the forward part of the cage had been hit by something that scarred the paint, so I think it was worth the $$$. We did have some other damage to the black water tank itself in that earlier TT and I don't see an easy way around that. We used to go to a very rugged area on the Continental Divide, near Pitkin Colorado. Fortunately again, the tank wasn't very full and the drainage occurred on our own land. We now have a 179 with the two dump valves separated by the axle. Nowadays we stick closer to civilization so I haven't given much thought to another cage. Tire carcasses could happen anywhere though. Hmm... Wish I had taken a picture of one of those earlier set ups, but my hindsight isn't that good.
	Joan, Jerry and the two Pugs 2015 R-Pod 179

TigerPawd Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Joined: 04 Feb 2015 Location: Corpus Christi Online Status: Offline Posts: 68	Posted: 15 Jun 2015 at 6:06pm
	Here's a poor picture of the "cage" I had built for the old Surveyor. It's a trapezoid and the valves stick out just far enough to attach the fittings for the drain tube. Front and back pieces are angle iron and horizontal piece is just straight steel strap. Gray water drain is forward, and about where the vertical white line is is another piece of angle iron, with the black valve just behind that. Above all that (in gray) is the frame. Obviously not a very good solution for any Pod with the axle between the two valves. One more thought - a few years ago, we had a blowout on the curb side. The carcass from our own tire did a fair amount of damage to the belly pan. If a street-side tire had blown, the cage would probably have prevented or reduced any damage to the valves. I hope this helps.
	Joan, Jerry and the two Pugs 2015 R-Pod 179