P-valve in Whites Fusion

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SHaase

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Messages
10
Reaction score
4
Location
Redmond, WA
# of dives
200 - 499
I'm going to be installing a Light Monkey Tinkle valve in my Whites Fusion this weekend. I was planning on doing it as described in this thread (P-Valve Installation in Drysuit: Overview of techniques) but was wondering about how to handle the two layers of my Fusion drysuit. In particular, should I put a hole in just the trilaminate or should I also put a hole in the Tech Skin layer? I'm leaning toward just doing the trilaminate.
 
I have a long history here.

My first use of a light monkey valve on a Whites Fusion did not go so well. It was done as instructed by Whites, with the two layers both having holes in them, and the two layers compressed together and the outer part of the valves outside the skin. (It was actually installed by Whites.)

It kept leaking there, no matter how tight I made it. I was in the shop of an authorized Whites repair person trying to fix it and listened as he talked to Whites on the phone to confirm that he was doing it properly as he tried to make it work. They insisted that both layers went in between the valve parts.

It never worked. As I looked at it, I figured the only way to make it work was to add a piece so that it was secured to the inner bag and then locked down again on the outer bag. All it would take would be adding a nut in the middle. If you do a search for really old threads on this topic, you will find a more detailed description of the idea. I could have done it myself easily if only the p-valve stem had been a quarter inch longer. It could not be done with the valve I had, though.

Eventually I used the solution from Dive Right in Scuba, which I believe they talked Whites into finally advocating as well.
  1. Install the valve on the inner bag only.
  2. Have a hole in the outer bag as if you were putting it through both layers. This will give you access to the valve so that you can open and close it. You can even have the valve outside the outer layer when you pee, but it isn't necessary. Water flows between the layers to wash it out while you dive.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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