Chinook RV

Hi everyone,

I kicked off another project yesterday—even though I’m still in the middle of my “Service Center” rebuild. That project is moving slower than expected because several of the replacement components are coming from the West Coast, and since I opted for free ground shipping to avoid the high express charges, the delivery dates have been a bit unpredictable. Rather than sit idle while waiting for parts, I decided to start tackling another item on my long-term project list (lol).

I began looking into repairs and upgrades for my SeaLand 511 Plus toilet. I searched through the forum, but the information available didn’t fully cover the work I needed to do.

This season I noticed two issues:

A small leak that appeared to be coming from either the toilet water valve, the floor flange seal or the bowl seals.

The bowl would not hold water—after every flush it would slowly dry out.

I had never fully inspected the toilet assembly before, and I assumed most of it was original or at least done by a previous owner. But I didn’t want to go into another season with a toilet that was slowly failing, and I definitely didn’t want to pay RV-shop prices for something I suspected I could repair myself.

After watching a ton of videos and reading whatever documentation I could find, I talked myself into giving it a go—“Slow and Stop” as always (lol).

To my surprise, once I started disassembling the toilet, I discovered that a previous owner had attempted a quick fix using some type of putty around the base. I had to remove all of that material before I could even pull the base free. Once it was apart, it became obvious that the floor flange seal and the two bowl seals had essentially deteriorated—they were basically ruined.

I took the unit completely apart, cleaned everything thoroughly, and then moved on to ordering parts. Some OEM replacements were more expensive than I wanted to spend, so for now I decided to try a well-reviewed, lower-cost seal kit and a compatible water valve. Several reviewers said they’ve used these parts for years with no problems, so I figured it was worth trying. Total cost was about $40.

Honestly, the hardest part of the entire job was simply understanding how everything came apart. Now that I’ve done it once, I’m confident I could tear it down again far more quickly if needed.

I’ll update this post once the replacement parts arrive and I begin reassembly.

Just when you think you’ve solved the puzzle, something manages to throw a monkey wrench into the project (lol).

In my earlier post, I mentioned that the previous owner had attempted some kind of quick fix on the toilet, but I wasn’t sure to what extent. After removing all the putty they used and installing new seals, I began reassembling the unit. Once everything was back together, I ran a simple test by pouring some antifreeze into the bowl to confirm whether it would hold liquid.

Unfortunately, it didn’t hold anything—the antifreeze drained straight through almost instantly. I couldn’t believe it. I reviewed the photos I took before and during disassembly, and from everything I could see, I had reassembled the unit correctly.

So I stepped away for a day or two to think it through, then tore it all back down and repeated the entire process, carefully following every step again.

At that point, the only remaining component that could be causing the issue was the flush ball assembly. I ordered a replacement, but when it arrived, I noticed it looked slightly different from the one installed in my toilet. After removing the existing flush ball assembly from the base, the difference became clear—the shape of the flush ball did not match the new one, and the original unit used a plastic ball shaft rather than a brass shaft used on the replacement part.

So tomorrow I’ll be starting the process again to see if this mismatch is the root of the problem.

I’ll post an update once I have the results.

It turns out that replacing the flush ball assembly was the final piece of the puzzle. After installing the new assembly and reassembling all of the components, I tested the bowl to see if it would finally hold the antifreeze— and it did. I won’t be able to perform a full system test until I complete the plumbing work for the Service Center, but barring any unforeseen issues, everything appears to be functioning properly.

Hopefully this information helps anyone planning to take on a similar repair.

Thanks for the write up. I have been procrastinating on doing this for a while.

Hi Blewett,

Thanks for the feedback—I really appreciate it. I was in the same boat for a long time and kept putting this repair off, mainly because I wasn’t sure how involved it would be once I started. In hindsight, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. The biggest challenge was figuring out the disassembly sequence the first time.

Once everything was apart and cleaned up, replacing the seals and components was pretty straightforward. Now that I’ve gone through it once, I’m confident I could do it again much faster. Hopefully the write-up helps make the process a little less intimidating when you decide to tackle it.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions when you get started.

Thanks for the write-up of your toilet repair. Fortunately, you have more room to work with in your Destiny bathroom than we do in our Concourse/Premiers. I broke the pedal connection when I was removing my toilet to work on it. I was able to get it to work, but in the end, I found out you can buy the pedestal (black base portion) as an assembled repair part which includes everything but the porcelain bowl and clamp. This gave me an essentially new toilet for about half the price of buying a new one.

I just wanted to let others know about that option, if they run into trouble disassembling, replacing parts, and reassembling.

Thanks again,
Clay