Been playing with this early 1960's or 1970's 1" shower valve for several days now to stop seat leak by....a gallon every couple of hours at first. Then after several attempts to fix it's up to around 1 gallon per hour. Probably an Eljer brand valve though not labeled. 4 spokes on the hand wheel. I have 2 in the shower and 2 in the tub - all identical.
Finally decided I had to get a new valve stem assembly. While it fit in fine, the leak only got worse. So at that point had to get the valve seat out as well. Unfortunately, the ACE hardware valve seat tools offered are just too fat on the rounded shaft portion and won't go into the initial round opening. It's a fairly deep seat. I searched around the hardware store with the owner looking at Allen keys and square stock. Nothing was a tight fit. It would seem a 9/32" square fit would do the trick. No one carries that size around here. They stop at 1/4". Picked out a square door handle shaft at the store that was close. But with the threaded grips on either end couldn't get a good enough hold on it w/o tearing it up. Nothing was budging.
So what "magic" tools do plumbers have for such a job. Can I get one? You'd think popping a valve seat would be easy enough? The valve seat internal itself is 4 sided but with slightly rounded corners.....sort of "6 sided." One other thought is that the valve might be so old that it came with an integral valve seat? I'm still using the old valve stem because it leaks less than the brand new one. Side by side they looked like perfect matches.
Thanks going forward.
Thread seat assembly on top with my make shift vale tool inside it.
Finally decided I had to get a new valve stem assembly. While it fit in fine, the leak only got worse. So at that point had to get the valve seat out as well. Unfortunately, the ACE hardware valve seat tools offered are just too fat on the rounded shaft portion and won't go into the initial round opening. It's a fairly deep seat. I searched around the hardware store with the owner looking at Allen keys and square stock. Nothing was a tight fit. It would seem a 9/32" square fit would do the trick. No one carries that size around here. They stop at 1/4". Picked out a square door handle shaft at the store that was close. But with the threaded grips on either end couldn't get a good enough hold on it w/o tearing it up. Nothing was budging.
So what "magic" tools do plumbers have for such a job. Can I get one? You'd think popping a valve seat would be easy enough? The valve seat internal itself is 4 sided but with slightly rounded corners.....sort of "6 sided." One other thought is that the valve might be so old that it came with an integral valve seat? I'm still using the old valve stem because it leaks less than the brand new one. Side by side they looked like perfect matches.
Thanks going forward.
Thread seat assembly on top with my make shift vale tool inside it.
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