Fresh water tank fell off while driving

[Hubie]

Last Friday we took off for a weekend away but did not get far because the fresh water tank fell off the frame of our '99 B190. Was able to pull to the side of the road, cut the remnants of the fill hose, vent line, electrical sensor connections and other connections, jack the van up and pull the tank out from under the van. I had left home with about 10 gallons of fresh water in the tank. In my '99, the plastic water tank sits in a thin gauge metal enclosure, I guess for protection from road rocks etc. That enclosure had a 1" flange fore and aft that was attached to the under chassis of the van with a total of five self tapping sheet metal screws 1 inch long. The screws sheared off at the head and down came the water tank, in the process destroying the sewer hose carrier. Hopefully I will be able to reuse the plastic tank and metal enclosure and hook everything else back up but you can bet I will devise a more substantial method of attaching the fresh water tank to the under chassis. Upon inspection I noted that the grey/black water tank is attached similarly but does have a couple of straps. My advice to anyone with this model airstream would be to check the attachment of all holding tanks on the underside of their van and as a safety precaution reinforce attachments of all tanks. I will surely do this! Hubert

[skater]

Wow. We had another member lose his gas tank that way, too.

There are plenty of other things that could fall off - the black/graywater tanks, the gas tanks, propane tanks, etc. Probably worth spending some time underneath to verify all of those. I know I'll check mine!

[Hubie]

I am gathering my parts to make the repairs on the fresh water tank and reattach it to the underside of the vehicle. I have ordered fresh water supply hose, vent hose, duct hose to go from the furnace to the metal box and sewage hose carrier. I am having trouble getting the wiring harness for the sensors on the tank. The four wires from the sensors going into a small black rubber "tab" about the size of a thumbnail. The tab has the letters "KIB" on it. I checked with KIB Electronics and they offer a similar but RED rubber tab. These tabs contains resistors which I think keep the LED indicators on the Elirix brand monitor panel from burning out. In any case, according to KIB electronics, they only made the RED tabs to be compatible with KIB monitor panels and KIB electronics indicated that the black tabs were a copy of their tabs containing resistors with different values from the RED tab. KIB Electronics says that the black and red tabs are not interchangeable because they contain resistors of different values which would give inaccurate readings on the monitor panel. KIB says another manufacturer copied their tab but used black rubber with their KIB logo and used resistors with different values from the RED tabs they offer and this tab would give inaccurate readings on the monitor panel. Airstream has not been helpful on this issue. Does anyway have a source for the correct BLACK rubber (KIB) tab? I think the correct name for the tab is a resistor network or resistor array. Thanks for any help. I am not an electronics person!
Hubert
Hubert