Removing the toilet from the Lance Camper--yes, I really have a blog entry about that

We haven't used the toilet in our camper, despite living in it for almost 8 months now.

Not counting the part that hangs over the pickup cab, our "vacation home" really is only the size of a pickup bed.  And we didn't want to be hauling around our raw sewage in a place as small as that--right next to where we prepare food and eat, and in the same "closet" where we hang our clothes.

Joke we heard:

Question:  Know why we want our new camper "home" to be so small?

Answer:  So the kids can't move back in with us.

 There are toilets in every campground, and then there is the great outdoors.  Really, it is kind of a glorious experience to go out into the wilderness in the middle of the night and gaze at the beautiful night sky in places where there are no city lights.  

But there were problems:  In crowded campgrounds this really isn't totally cool.  Someone might object (although I'm not sure why).  And when there is a full moon in a full campground one has to be really creative.  And it can be a long walk to the bathrooms, necessitating waking up more than you want to.  And sometimes it is very cold or is raining. 

So we decided we wanted a camper toilet.  But we still didn't want our rig to be a portable sewage treatment plant.

Solution?  A portable camping toilet.  We bought one and tried it out on our last camping trip, sort of stuffing it into the bathroom.  It uses almost no water, and the holding tank can then be just taken out once a week and dumped into dumping station or even a toilet.  We will use it for number 1, but still use campground toilets for number 2.  How's that for more than you wanted to know?

Next step was to remove the stationary toilet so we could place the portable one in its place.

Looked pretty easy.

And whenever anything looks pretty easy, it generally isn't.  This was no exception.

One of the bolts holding it down was accessible, and I removed it easily.  The other was a bear--almost no space at all.  Took about an hour to loosen it enough that I could grab it with my fingers.

 Not a lot of space to work:

Success!

Well, of course, I wasn't done.  I turned on the pump for sink water, and found that water was spraying out of the line that fed the toilet.  I needed to get something to stop that up.  It can be seen here:

I wasn't sure about the size of the plug that I would need.  So I didn't know what else to do except take the toilet to the hardware store and try to find a piece that would match what was on the toilet.

Here I am at Sebo's.

When I walked in, three employees at the cash register immediately turned and stared at me.

I explained that since they didn't have a public bathroom I had to bring my own toilet. 

As I said, one should always be leery about something that looks like an easy project.  It turns out that the flange on the toilet wasn't a standard size--it was made specifically for this unit.

So back home to try to figure this out.  What I did was remove the part from the toilet that flushed it, and just stuck it back on.  Wired it shut so we wouldn't accidentally turn on the water.

Done!  

Now we have more flexibility for camping spots.  Also, when it is cold or raining we don't have to leave the camper.  It will also be useful when we have grandkids in the camper who might need to use the bathroom at night.