Kyla

So my Sunrader is the version that the shower is plumbed to the (rather small) black water tank. I read on here at some point about changing it so that it could be hooked up to a standard garden hose and drained to the ground (if permitted by the location) or to a 5 gallon bucket. I would very much like to do that. Or better yet to have a valve on it that would let me control whether it went to the black water tank or to a hose - however I'm not sure if there is really room there to make that happen. I'm mostly completely clueless about all things plumbing. Can anybody help me with a 'for dummies' version of how to go about this? Specifically I'm wondering what parts would be needed to convert from the existing pipe to a hose fitting. I'm completely lacking in the vocabulary for such things and don't know what I should be searching for.

A few notes on what I've learned about the vinyl too in case it helps somebody else: - It's easier to work with when warm or hot. This goes for removing the old vinyl as well as putting in the new vinyl. If you try to remove the old stuff when it's cold it will break into a bunch of little pieces. Doing it when hot it will pull off in a long strip. - I started with the white vinyl and on my Sunrader it looked very white compared to the fiberglass and the other yellowed trim and stuff. I've ordered some off-white to try and I'm hoping it blends in a little better. - As Linda mentioned, there are two sizes, but just to be more specific the actual widths of them are 1 inch and 3/4 inch. My Sunrader is the 3/4 inch.

Thinking about it, when I took the screws out, they were VERY hard to get out. They are definitely broken off at the ends - they are not all quite the same length and the ends are sheared off. Given how hard they are to get out, I suspect they are twisting off and breaking when I go to take them out. I'm guessing I can't take them all out, put sealant in and then put them back since some of them are different lengths where they've broken off at slightly different places. (One of the longer ones would have trouble going into a whole with another piece broken off in it.) I could do them one at a time so that each screw half would match in the right hole, but that'll be time-consuming switching between a drill and sealant. So while putting sealant in there sounds like a good idea, I'm not sure it's going to be straight-forward.

Thank you for the reply Linda! For now I think I am going to forget about messing with the screws and just replace the vinyl and see what happens. If I find I actually have trouble with it leaking then I'll get more ambitious.

I have an 18 foot 1990 Toyota Sunrader. The vinyl strip that covers the seam between the top and bottom fiberglass pieces of my Sunrader is in really poor shape so I thought I'd replace it. In some places, particularly around the cabover, the previous owners had also applied caulking over the vinyl strip making me wonder if it had been leaking at some point in the past. I thought that I would take out the old screws, get new ones and put caulking in the holes before putting in the new screws and finally replacing the vinyl strip. After taking off six screws to try to get a comparison to take to the hardware store to look for replacements it seems that they are all broken off. They are very short, but slightly different lengths and fairly rough on the ends. (Picture attached) Had anybody else had this issue? Any thoughts on what I should do? It doesn't seem like I can put in new screws when half the old screw is still stuck in there. Has anybody ever had the top and bottom pieces apart? I'm wondering if all of the screws are broken in half what is really holding this thing together.