Water heater failure

[GORDON HUMMEL]

I rarely open the door to the water heater and have been traveling all summer. I came back to Tulsa to do some repairs before going west for the winter. I can't remember the reason I opened that compartment door, but I had a very hard time turning the latch. When I finally got it opened I was horrified to see the WH was trying to get out & was basically being held in by the plumbing. My initial thought was that I had hit something under the WH and pushed it up. I looked & no damage. It appeared that it had seperated from it's base. After I removed it, I discovered that the original concave tank bottom was now partially convex. The heater was not leaking & woking fine, but for how long.
I'm guessing that with the heat from the engine & a defective safety valve (?) something had to give. Because of it's age, I decided to replace it with a conventional unit. Sears had the best spec's & price, but a 5-10 day wait. Found one at Lowe's, 19 Gal vs. 20 on the Raritan, 1500 watts vs 1250 & $260. Believe it or not, the plumbing lined up perfectly.
The recovery rate seems quite a bit greater than the wattage increase would suggest. "C" clamps worked on the engine water lines, & with the old fittings on the tank I was able to connect these hoses together.

There had been some previous discussions on replacing the safety valve with a higher pressure one because of the added heat from the engine. Based on my experience, I would stick with the factory setup
Pictues to follow, when I find them