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Drainmaster Gate Valves - Best MOD Ever!

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Neal

Staff member
RVF Administrator
Joined
Jul 27, 2019
Messages
11,477
Location
Midlothian, VA
RV Year
2017
RV Make
Newmar
RV Model
Ventana 4037
RV Length
40' 10"
Chassis
Freightliner XCR
Engine
Cummins 400 HP
TOW/TOAD
2017 Chevy Colorado
Fulltimer
No
Some of you know I did a major winter project a year ago to install electric waste gate valves in my 2017 Newmar Ventana. It was quite involved as Newmar back then used a step down from the 3 inch drain on gray to a 1.5 inch pipe and to keep this short it was just poor choice on Newmar but something I overcame by replacing the piping coming out of Gray. It sounds like Newmar got smart and took a good look at their wet bay design and now uses 3 inch piping just like on the black side.

Let me stop right here and say that in my opinion there is no better MOD than being able to dump your tanks from inside your coach. It is something I absolutely love and will never...NEVER be without in any future coaches. Drainmaster has been outstanding to work with, super helpful when I had a gazillion questions with my mod but now with the new Newmar wet bay config I cannot tell you how easy this is!


There are four bolts that hold your gray and black gate valves in between two pieces of 3 inch piping, well the center part may be your Valterra "wye" valve but that's 3 inches regardless. You remove four bolts, remove the manual gate, insert the electric gate, add four bolts and you are done! Well, now you just need 12V power. You do NOT need to remove your wet bay panel to do this and as there is a range of angle allowed if your wet bay heater is in the way you just angle your electric gate valve away from it slightly. You can easily source 12V power from the adjacent bay which is your cord reel bay.

You may want to take this slightly further and add a master on/off switch so you can't inadvertently hit a button an open a gate valve when you least expect it as you will likely get the setup with two switch pairs, one for the wet bay panel and one to go inside your coach. The master switch is offered by Drainmaster as well along with many other goodies. When ordering you'll want to specify the length of cable to go from the gate valves to the switches, this is simple "phone jack" cable that goes from the gate valve to the switch so it's nothing hard to wire, it's plug and play. I suggest asking for a 2 foot length of cable for the one that will go from the gate valve to the wet bay panel then probably a 20 foot length for the one going into your coach. The challenge is now finding a path into your coach and where you want to put the switch. It's not anything you can't figure out but it's just part of the puzzle and you can always figure that out later and just enjoy the push button option at the wet bay panel in the interim.

Now if you have sani-con it can get a little more exciting but you can always just use your stinky slinky instead if you don't want to deal with the wiring situation with sani-con. But I did so heavily coached by @Chuggs and also helped by @Stuart S in setting up a system that works just like my water pump using momentary switches, a latching controller (intellitec - as people call it a water pump controller but it's just a latching controller for any use), and a relay to pass the power to the sani-con. Again, this may be too complicated for many but it is NOT required. Setup your 3 inch stinky slinky and still enjoy the ability to dump from inside the coach. You can use sani-con when needed by dumping from the wet bay.

Moral is, again, there is no better mod than avoiding crawling under slides and dealing with pulling gate valves to dump. You can better manage your tanks this way such as when black approaches full you can close gray and let it start accumulating to help flush the black after black is dumped.

Make it happen, you will love this capability. It is so easy to install as mentioned above.
 
Sounds cool. I would love to hear how this works out long term. I struggle with keeping sensors clean and the Dawn eventually removes the valve lubrication. The advantage of manual dumping is being able to feel when the valves need lubrication.

Of course your method would be great when dumping is required on a relatively cold, rainy day. :cool:
 
BTW: How does one lubricate the valves, just at the pull handle or do you need to take apart the valve.
 
How does one lubricate the valves, just at the pull handle or do you need to take apart the valve.

If you ever have to lube the drainmaster valves you'll need to remove the four bolts and pull it out. Spread the lube on both sides of the gate and then reinstall.
 
If you ever have to lube the drainmaster valves you'll need to remove the four bolts and pull it out. Spread the lube on both sides of the gate and then reinstall.
Thanks
 
BTW: How does one lubricate the valves, just at the pull handle or do you need to take apart the valve.
For the regular valves, I use WD40 Silicone, with a long clear plastic tube attached to the straw on the can. With the valvle closed, I snake the long tube up the pipe until it hits the gate. Spray generously. Then I open the valve and push the tube past the gate and again spray liberally. Now, I work the valve open and closed multiple times. Repeat as necessary. Viola - just like new. No disassembly needed. I also use silicone plumber's grease on the rod.
 
Hi Neal, Would love to see some pictures of the Drain Master Electronic Waste Valves mod you did. I want to install them as well as the Drain Master Hose on my 2017 Ventana 4369 but feel I need to remove the water bay panel to accomplish. Where and how did you run wires to the inside panel? Any tips and tricks would be much appreciated.
 
Hi Neal, Would love to see some pictures of the Drain Master Electronic Waste Valves mod you did. I want to install them as well as the Drain Master Hose on my 2017 Ventana 4369 but feel I need to remove the water bay panel to accomplish. Where and how did you run wires to the inside panel? Any tips and tricks would be much appreciated.

You may want to lookup my thread on this on iRV2 by searching for Drainmaster and that will probably get you the thread. It can be quite involved as I converted my grey plumbing from Newmar's 1.5 inch step down from a 3 inch drain, not sure why they did that but they don't anymore which is good, to 3 inch plumbing so a coupler is not needed for Drainmaster's gate valve. Newmar's grey gate has a 3 inch left and 1.5 inch right connector (aka stupid). You're out west so you may want to just take your coach to Drainmaster in CA and have them install this for you.

The wiring is not hard, you'll want a short (2ft) cable for the switch on the wet bay panel, if you want switches in the coach (highly recommended) then get longer cables 20ft I think is what I have and you can run them to various locations without too much trouble. It's all work, not gonna lie, but it's well worth it.

Taking the wet bay panel off will be required to adjust the plumbing but if you can get the coupler to work then you could do without it. Regardless, the wet bay panel looks intimidating but it's not hard at all. Just takes about an hour as it's a bit more involved.

Well worth the effort and Drainmaster and the people involved are outstanding.
 
You may want to lookup my thread on this on iRV2 by searching for Drainmaster and that will probably get you the thread. It can be quite involved as I converted my grey plumbing from Newmar's 1.5 inch step down from a 3 inch drain, not sure why they did that but they don't anymore which is good, to 3 inch plumbing so a coupler is not needed for Drainmaster's gate valve. Newmar's grey gate has a 3 inch left and 1.5 inch right connector (aka stupid). You're out west so you may want to just take your coach to Drainmaster in CA and have them install this for you.

The wiring is not hard, you'll want a short (2ft) cable for the switch on the wet bay panel, if you want switches in the coach (highly recommended) then get longer cables 20ft I think is what I have and you can run them to various locations without too much trouble. It's all work, not gonna lie, but it's well worth it.

Taking the wet bay panel off will be required to adjust the plumbing but if you can get the coupler to work then you could do without it. Regardless, the wet bay panel looks intimidating but it's not hard at all. Just takes about an hour as it's a bit more involved.

Well worth the effort and Drainmaster and the people involved are outstanding.

Thank you
 
With all of the automated stuff soon exercise will be a thing of the past. Round will be considered shapely.:unsure:
 

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