Our recently bought third-hand campervan Weinsberg Carabus 600 K from 2021 gave us some headaches after our first Easter use. Nothing big, mostly related to not not knowing how to manage such apartment on wheels, but enough to block us from enjoying a weekend out and keeping us busy for a pair of weeks.

In this article I go through water pump change, custom water filter bypass and understanding the Truma water boiler and its valves, to have the van up and running again.

A bit of context: where do we come from?

After 3 years of owning a Volkswagen Transporter T5 that we camperized ourselves (furnitures, electrics and water system, I'd love to write a bit about it on this blog), we got a beautiful daughter that made us go bigger. And because time and energy could not be invested to build a van ourselves, this time we bought a Weinsberg Carabus 600 K, which is basically a 6 meter Fiat Ducato, that came with stock bed to fit our new family needs.

The van was bought while it was still in its winter preparation (that is, empty of water and all taps open), and with very few explanations on how it is built and how to manage such a thing with all the equipment that comes with (electrics, water, gas, grey and black water,….). Every single little thing has been something to stop, think and learn the hard way.

I guess that’s what you get when you don’t build it yourself, that you don’t feel you’re on top of the system until several issues make you learn.

Brief walk-through to the water system

This van comes with a huge drinking water tank located over the rear-right wheel, beautifully wrapped under a furniture that also partially holds the bed. It is filled through an external entry and also has access through a closing in the furniture below the bed. There is also a key to drain the tank, accessible from that furniture closing below the bed.

From there a hose appears to go below the floor to the mid-left side where the water boiler and the toilet are. The boiler is a Truma Combi 4 that works gas based and it's also the air heater, and is fit below the passenger bench. There I can also see an Alb Travel water filter and an automatic valve connected all to the system.

There is a water tap in the mid-right side of the van (in the kitchen sink) and another one in the toilet sink, that activate electrically the water pump and get both cold and hot water pipes. There are also two more custom-made water exits with switches to activate the pump, one in the very back of the van once you open the rear doors and another one in the furniture next to the side door. The previous owner was a kite-surfer and these were used to clean his stuff.

Regarding the grey water, all sinks bring the disposable water to a tank below the van, that we’re meant to empty in specific places through a key and fixed hose outside the van. It stinks, so better to use the rubber closings on the holes.

Regarding the black water, it is directly filled from the toilet into a cassette, that we’re meant to empty through a small room in the right side of the van, extracting it and emptying manually to specific places in campings.

Going through the protocol to un-hibernate the van from winter set up

As I mentioned earlier, the van was bought in hibernating winter state. That means having all taps open for ventilation including the grey water key and the tank draining key and having the drinkable water tank and the grey water tank empty. This is important if the van stays untouched for long period of time, to avoid having molt appearing in the system.

To bring it back to work one needs to close everything, fill the tank with 60 liters, add 1/4 cup of bleach, drive it a bit roughly so that the water in the tank washes its inner walls, let it sit for 12h, empty it, repeat without chemics, empty it, and fill the tank again for the final use.

Our first adventure was to fill it without knowing that there is a draining key opened, so we were filling it while the water was directly leaving the tank. We felt quite silly until a logic spark illuminated us, found the key and closed it.

The second one was to make the water go through the pipes until the taps. It really took long, until the point to think that something was wrong in the system. We heard like bubbles in the system until the water appeared with low pressure into the taps, and moving between cold and hot water (that of course appeared cold) to have all system wet we could finally have the proper pressure there.

The third challenge was to find a place where one can apply chemics and empty the water properly, so we used our first camping event to do so. It was very messy to leave the pitch to the draining place a couple of times to do the protocol, as it was Easter hollidays and the campsite was full, and on top the weather was unlovely, making the whole process very unpleasant. We were with a baby that needs constant attention and we were unable to produce hot water for the milk bottles… A disaster.

Anyways, we had it eventually running, without chemics taste in the water, and we were looking forward to enjoying the van without such issues.

A tip for the next time, try to find a camping close by home that may accept that you go to fill the tanks and empty your grey water for some money, that it will be way cheaper and convenient than spending a weekend in a campsite while performing the protocol. For us, the Unterbachersee Campsite North worked pretty good (~6 euros for the process, only cash) the next time we wanted to empty our grey tank.

The water pump failure

After such an adventure we used the van once more where we kinda emptied the water tank without refilling it too much. The van stood unused for about 3 weeks and then a weekend away came in the calendar. We simply filled the tank and jumped into the van to drive 300 kms of highway.

Just before start driving we realised that the water was not coming out from the taps, and I assumed that during these 3 unused weeks the water just left the pipes and we needed to pump it through the system. We opened the taps for long minutes but nothing was coming out. We started to drive, having the taps opened to try to use the driving to win some time.

Eventually the pumper stopped working. At destination I’ve checked the water pumper fuse and it was blown. I replaced with a new 10A one that blew straight away. I placed a new one and it blew again. I was very disappointed, most likely I shouldn’t have used the pumper for so long during a drive under the heat, seeing that the water was really not coming out and probably the issue was somewhere else. I just destroyed the pumper. I could also observe that water was coming from the bottom of the van directly to the street, and I just left it for impossible by now.

After coming back from that disastrous weekend, I removed the pumper from the van and tried it at home, blowing also the fuse of the transformer I used, so I directly ordered a new one in Amazon.

After a week a new one came, I installed it back and it worked (good, this means that the fuses where blown only because of the pumper and nothing else on the electrical system). Still, the water was not coming out from the taps. I was able to lift the pumper a bit to realise that pressured water was coming out from the overpressure valve on the pumper. This means that the pipes system was stuck somewhere, and probably overusing the previous pumper with the pipes stuck just killed it.

I can’t follow every single centimetre of the pipes system, but the next component in the flow should be the water filter. Could it be that it was stuck there. Fortunately, it is connected using metallic Gardena-like fast-connections, so I could remove and bypass the water filter. The water appeared quickly from the taps, so the whole issue appeared to be the water filter, that nobody knows when was the last time that it got changed.

I brought it home and unmounted, to discover that we're supposed to buy a replacement cartridge, and also it left a lot of wet dirt particles in the process.

Still, leaving from the van I discovered that water was going out from the bottom into the street. I took a look at the instruction manual of the Truma water boiler and discovered that there is a freezing protection valve that also acts as an over-pressure valve that may be opened. I checked it and was indeed opened, so I closed it and the water did not appear anymore.

My theory is that with the water filter stuck, the over-pressure protection triggered and opened the valve, that was emptying the water tank when the water pump was sending water through the pipes. So for the next time:

• check the water filter
• check the over-pressure valve
• don't use the taps while driving
• don't use the pumper if the water does not come out from the taps for a long period (as it means an issue somewhere else)
• use fuses, always!

The Alb water filter

Once we received the new cartridge for the Alb filter I downloaded their PDF in English that explains how to mount it correctly, and to my surprise it says that it is meant to be used under a pressure of 3 bar, while the water pumper can only provide 1,4 bar. In my head this would make the filter to get stuck earlier if actually works otherwise, or to trigger the over-pressure valve often. Double checking, turns out that I chose the Active Plus+ cartridge that apparently had a good balance between solid filtering and bacteria stopper, but has too high needs for water pressure. The cartridge Nano was the one used previously, and seems to fit on the pressure needs. So I returned back the Active Plus+ cartridge and ordered the Nano one.

When it came I just installed it straight away and the water just appeared into the taps. So yeah, the filter cartridge was stuck and it was the origin of all the issues. To be honest, it is quite pricey. I would have chosen another brand (for example this one from Reich, that is cheaper and stays longer).

Wrapping up: the current state

So now we finally have the van ready for enjoying, at least when it comes to the water system. The water tank is full, the system is un-hibernated and clean, the pumper is new, the water filter is changed and installed, and we have water coming out from the taps with acceptable pressure.

What a story!

References

I really want to leave some links here for further reference.

• Truma Combi 4 Instructions manual. Includes the explanation for the over-pressure valve PDF download link
• Barwig Typ 088 12 DC 22 l/min 1,4 bar Amazon DE link
• Alb Filter Travel installation manual PDF download link
• Alb Filter cartridge Active Plus+ Amazon DE link
• Alb Filter cartridge Nano (set of 2, cheaper) Amazon DE link

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