Waste Holding tank install in 1988 Sundancer 268

Jack W. Williamson

Jack W. Williamson

Member
Nov 3, 2017
109
Syracuse, NY
Boat Info
1988 268DA Sundancer Single 454
Engines
454 7.4 L Mercruiser Alpha one
I'm thinking about adding
a holding tank for toilet waste. My 268 has a working macerator and it looks like the plumbing might already be in place for placing a tank on the starboard side in the engine cavity. Has anyone ever done this? Thanks for any suggestions.
Jack
 
It seems like you’re more than half way home then.

Assuming that all of the plumbing is in place as you say, this means that a holding tank existed at some point.

How have you been pumping out up to this point?
 
There is a waste outlet to pump out the approx 4 gallon holding tank under the toilet seat and it works great. There is a macerator. It is operated by a key and I have never used it, I'm not at all sure how to use it! I see a corrugated, white hose leading towards the bilge. This white tube or hose is almost 2" diameter. The boat never had a holding tank that I can tell, but it almost looks like the addition of one might have been in the original design, layout. I will further investigate just exactly where that white corrugated tube terminates. Thanks for your interest!
Jack
 
If things are set-up as you're saying, the large hose leaving the porta-potty will/should be going to a y-valve. The y-valve then connects to the pump-out fitting and the macerator. Again, this is how it "should be" arranged... but at 30 years old and who-knows-how-many previous owners... all bets are off! :) The white hose tells us that it, at least, has been changed at some point since 30 years ago it would have been a black, rubber, wire-reinforced hose. By "corrugated", I hope you mean "relatively smooth on the outside, with plastic reinforcement inside". The plastic reinforcement creates VERY slight "humps" - but no where near as deep/high as a typical "corrugated" hose would have. A true "corrugated" hose is the wrong type of hose to be using.

There's most likely info in your manual, if you wanted to double check or read up on more info.
 
A boat I owned a couple of years ago had this same situation.

I could see where a small tank was mounted, but someone had added batteries and mounted them there thereby eliminating the tank. The macerator pump and plumbing headed towards the bilge was still in place like yours, but I was OK with the tank under the head itself. I think it might have been 7 gallons.

Adding a tank shouldn't bee too hard as long as a space exists to mount it and you might have to add another thru hull fitting to pump out of there unless you can plumb to the existing one.

The tanks aren't cheap either.
 
Soulshine said:
A boat I owned a couple of years ago had this same situation.

I could see where a small tank was mounted, but someone had added batteries and mounted them there thereby eliminating the tank. The macerator pump and plumbing headed towards the bilge was still in place like yours, but I was OK with the tank under the head itself. I think it might have been 7 gallons.

Adding a tank shouldn't bee too hard as long as a space exists to mount it and you might have to add another thru hull fitting to pump out of there unless you can plumb to the existing one.

The tanks aren't cheap either.
Click to expand...
I really like this comfortable boat.
I think I might to spend some time as a liveaboard! So I don't want to have to pump a lot. This is such a great group here. Thanks so much.
 
Jack W. Williamson said:
I'm thinking about adding
a holding tank for toilet waste. My 268 has a working macerator and it looks like the plumbing might already be in place for placing a tank on the starboard side in the engine cavity. Has anyone ever done this? Thanks for any suggestions.
Jack
Click to expand...
It looks like the plumbing needed to deliver the waste to the new holding tank goes under the mirror in the cabin starboard side.
I will find out soon
 
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