by Barry and Cindy 1997 U270 36′
December 23, 2008, We have the short base Sealand 511 toilet. Short base toilets are mounted on a Foretravel wooden box and are needed when the toilet is not mounted directly over the black holding tank. I decided to replace our toilet with a new Sealand model 511+ short base but found the new ceramic bowl to be an unacceptable 2″ taller. And the shorter height is no longer available, so don’t break your ceramic bowl if is a model 511.
The plastic base is replaceable and the new base doesn’t use the two overflow holes inside the 511 toilet, so they must be sealed off with plastic plugs available from Sealand.
Sealand has a redesigned base/bowl seal that uses rubber & plastic/Teflon instead of two rubber parts. The water valve and other base parts are still the same and commonly available.
Sealand was very accommodating and helped me rebuild our original ceramic bowl with all-new base parts.
We also learned about the Foretravel wooden base and how it is constructed and mounted to the floor and how the ABS flange is mounted to the toilet base. We took the wood base apart, painted each of the four boards and reassembled them. I found a small leak in the ABS pipe under the toilet and repaired it with silicone.
Update:
This week, our Dometic Sealand Traveler 511+ short base toilet developed a small water leak from the vacuum brake on the back of the toilet. I called Sealand (800-321-9886) because the replacement part looked different from our leaky part and during our call today, we learned more about our ceramic base. We had learned that Sealand re-designed the Traveler in the year 2000 on our previous toilet problem that we wrote up (above) in 2008. But today we learned about other differences between pre & post-2000 model Travelers:
- Post-2000 ceramic base is about 2” taller, possibly making the sitting position uncomfortable when used with pre-2000 Foretravel built wooden toilet pedestal.
- The plastic base no longer is available with overflow p-traps.
- The ceramic toilet is no longer available with overflow holes.
- Base/bowl seal no longer comes with overflow holes, (although holes could be drilled in new seal).
- Vacuum break for pre-2000 ceramic toilet has an ‘extension’. Sealand part number 385 319 055 (with flushing hose). Stag-Parkway #46-6016.
- Pre-2000 vacuum break without flushing hose, still using the ‘extension’, is Sealand p/n 385 318 065.
- Later models use a vacuum break without the ‘extension’.
- Sealand 4-bolt toilet flange seal is still p/n 385 310 063.
Back in 2008, we decided to re-use our original lower ceramic bowl when we rebuilt the toilet with all new parts. We cleaned and alcohol our ceramic base and holes in bowl and holes in the bottom of the ceramic toilet. Then stuffed holes with plastic to reduce the quantity of silicone needed, and poured silicone in holes and used Sealand color-matched plugs to close off bowl holes. We then used the new style short plastic base and new style bowl/base seal along with other new parts and our toilet continues to work just fine for the last 5 years, except for the leaky vacuum break, which we will fix next week when new parts arrive.