Just been getting my 2007 Triton 430 ready for the first outing this season and found the toilet flush pump seized again, 3rd year running.
I bought a spare last year but didn't fit it as the pump seems to last all through the season once the initial freeing off has been done.
It occurs to me that I never had this problem in the previous 7 years of ownership of this van and wondered why?
Well, with the usual reports on here every year of frost damage to taps etc I have been more rigorous with my winter drain in the last two or three years. My normal routine was to leave the taps open when leaving my last site of the season and allowing the bumpy ride home to remove the last of the water. In addition, last two or three years I have been emptying the toilet flush tank as much as possible and also running the flush pump until it runs dry.

Is running the flush pump completely empty the cause of my problem? It has all winter to dry out and get stuck. The flush pump sits in an open reservoir so there is no pressure problem should it freeze.

Maybe this over zealous wintering is causing this annual problem. Thoughts please.

Hi Ray, one of the most common causes of seized flush pumps is the use of flush tank additives.
If you're not guilty of this then it's hard to say what's causing the regular failures.

The pump does overheat if run dry but should be ok for no more than 5 secs at a time.

It might be worthwhile flushing out the tank with clean water at the end of the season.

It sounds like your thoughts might be turning to storing over winter with water in the cistern tank, on the basis that the pump won't dry out. Several issues though. One is that the pump will maybe have water in it when the cold weather comes and it could freeze solid and burst like the taps. Then there is the issue that you can't be certain that the pump is in water unless you fill it quite full. Another issue is that constant water immersion might speed internal corrosion and the pump fail note quickly.

My toilet flush pump has just gone as well, the motor was seized and blew the fuse. It is ten years old and started to fail last season so I think it is just wear and tear. I have ordered a new one and hopefully will change it out tomorrow 😊
IMG_6131.jpeg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

Thanks for the thoughts folks, just to be clear I don't use an additive in the flush tank.

The pump that has failed during winter is the same one as I thought once I got it freed off it should have been OK as it went all season with no problem.

However, like poptop, I've now fitted a new pump. See what happens next year

Ironically, I have an external water inlet with the same sort of pump that sits in the aquaroll. That's at least as old as the flush tank pump and sits dried out every winter. The irony is that it's obviously easy to service but has never failed.

I've posted on this in the past after my pump jammed a few years ago. I followed the excellent guide on YouTube and loosened it up - at the cost of a lot of cuts and lost skin on my rather large hands. Following Colin's observation I stopped using the pink stuff..........................and started using a bit of the the green stuff in the flush tank

All has been well for the last three years until last week at Burrs Country Park when it jammed again....................I got over it by emptying the contents of the tank into a large plastic milk container, which I kept by the toilet and flushed manually. I was a bit taken aback by how dark green the liquid was. I think I made it too strong and perhaps did the same last season???????

When I get it unjammed I think I might just start using plain water.

I read somewhere about someone giving it a final flush of the year with very hot water to help clean out bits before storing it for the winter, but I forgot to do it!!!!!!!

Like SteamD I am a bit unsure about leaving water in the tank over the winter but it got me thinking about leaving some in with a little anti-freeze in it - but that may be another of my daft ideas.

Getting ready to skin my knuckles again

MikeT

I've heard folk suggest that flushing the tank with hot water is an alternative method of freeing a stuck pump. But that advice seemed based on the assumption that the pump had stuck due to gunging up with coagulated pink. When ours has stuck there's been no sign of pink on the pump, so whether hot water would've helped I couldn't say. We've not used pink for about 4 years now.

I managed to replace the pump with a kit from grasshopper leisure £21. I use Elsans toilet pink flush and I didn’t have any black sludge on it at all. I must have pulled the flush nozzle out of the holder slightly as it turned the toilet into a bidet! , it’s a good job I tested it with water before use
My toilet basin tap/shower head appeared to be a bit slow, I soaked it overnight in a solution of white distilled vinegar and water which seems to have improved the flow.


IMG_6152.jpeg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

I know I've said this before and those with newer vans might not want to go down this route, but I gave up with the quite useless feeble flush on ours, and use a bottle filled with a very pretty pink solution and pour it down the loo. Much more effective than the silly flush we had before.

Our flush has always been feeble. Until I found the problem.
I fitted a new higher powered pump last year hoping it would fix the issue but it did not.
I then studies the wiring and remembered that Eriba wiring is reversed. Blue is live /brown is neutral.
So I switched the wires round on the pump and now it sprays round the bowl almost too fast!
It seems it was built with the pump wired incorrectly.

I remember when I got my 2012 Familia 320, it was when the Germans had took over production from France. There was a few wiring issues which plagued a lot of 2012 Eribas, wrong 12v switch on the cabinet wall, wiring connected up incorrectly stopping the leisure battery been charged up when connected to the car and the fridge also not working on 12v when connected to the car. I had mine fixed on the first year warranty.