Does everyone else have on of these on the bottom of their DEF tank

[newmarokie]

I was tinkering with the motorhome getting ready to leave for Vega Sunday and crawled under the back end of the coach. I took this picture on the bottom of the DEF tank. It looks to be 1/2" pipe, but no mater it has a hex head for removal. It seems that one of the largest concerns about DEF is storage life. I keep mine in a insulated barn that I can keep heated if it gets to cold, but it will get into the high nineties during the summer. If that plug works, I could drain the DEF into a clean container and store it in a temperature controlled environment if I am not going to be using it and turning the DEF regularly. '19 dutchstar on freightliner chassis

 

[Rich W.]

I was tinkering with the motorhome getting ready to leave for Vega Sunday and crawled under the back end of the coach. I took this picture on the bottom of the DEF tank. It looks to be 1/2" pipe, but no mater it has a hex head for removal. It seems that one of the largest concerns about DEF is storage life. I keep mine in a insulated barn that I can keep heated if it gets to cold, but it will get into the high nineties during the summer. If that plug works, I could drain the DEF into a clean container and store it in a temperature controlled environment if I am not going to be using it and turning the DEF regularly. '19 dutchstar on freightliner chassis

Spartan or Freightliner? IIRC there is no drain on the Freightliner tanks. But that part of the emissions system is done by the chassis builder, not determined by Cummins so the systems differ between the two. And probably Tiffin, Newell, Prevost, and Foretravel for that matter.

Edit - had to go check and confirmed no drain on mine. When it got stinky two summers ago I siphoned it out.

 

[newmarokie]

mine is a Freightliner chassis. Probably a "18. October build date on the Dutch Star

 

[Rich W.]

mine is a Freightliner chassis. Probably a "18. October build date on the Dutch Star

I guess I could have briefly glanced to the left to see that. Maybe the drain is part of the 2016 system architecture revision.

 

[newmarokie]

If more tanks had this it would solve dilemmas for lots of people. Park it with a full tank, or a low tank. DEF would have a much longer shelf life in an out of the sunlight, temperature controlled climate.

 

[newmarokie]

I had already been scheming on how to tap the tank for that reason.

 

[Rich W.]

I had already been scheming on how to tap the tank for that reason.

Given how fragile the system is and how easily DEF degrades, every DEF tank should have a drain valve.

 

[newmarokie]

Agreed. Even if you have to siphon like you did and leave 1/2-1" in the bottom, you get into ratios of fresh to bad, ie; Rich's concern.

 

[Neemer]

This is what my Freightliner has.

 

[newmarokie]

That looks exacly like mine. Rich is probably right. The 2016 redesign is when it started. Rich's looks to be the black HDPE tank and ours is the white translucent tank. I wish ours was the black. It always seemed to e more durable