Last year, our LeVac began exhibiting strange behavior.
Suddenly after years of
service, after doing #2 and pumping, the material within would explode inside the bowl. As you can imagine, this is quite unpleasant to clean for the next person who discovers it. Somehow, this always turned out to be me. I thought it was because something that one of the crew had either attempted to flush or that they were operating the
head improperly. This happened when both
flushing to sea and to the empty
holding tank. Unfortunately, we were on a multiday
offshore regatta at the time.
Months after avoiding the job, I eventually broke down the Henderson / Whale
pump. To my surprise, the valves, particularly the outlet check valve was in a very questionable state. One valve kit later, all was well again. I think I will add an extra valve
repair kit to the list of essential spares.
So, if your LeVac starts to explode, check the valves first before pointing fingers.