I changed a couple of sloan valves on toilets at my church Friday night. Not a bad job and cuts the cost considerably. Simply shut the water off, open the tp and pull out the insides and drop in a new A-38-A Retro water saver kit. Both of the old ones had considerable hard, mineral deposits on top and were not shutting off right. The job was extended by an hour of mopping by miss judging how well one of the stops worked. Likely I will be doing more of this. Some of the stuff is old, 60's. It would be nice if I could really shut the water off at the toilet by screwing in the stop. If I took the stops off, and cleaned them up, maybe attacking the minerals on the rubber parts with acid, could I get them cleaned up to stay for a while? Could they maybe be the source of the low pressure keeping some of the oldest ones from flushing right?

I already checked, they are not the style with the holes in the bowl. I had to flush the one 4 times before I was going to put my had in it to check.

Hey Lab,
What kind of piping does your church have? Sounds like galvanized. You may pull the stops off and perhaps clean up mineral deposits around the seat but it's my bet you'll find the loss of pressure and volume in the buildup in the pipes themselves. I have seen mineral buildup so bad in a 3/4" galvanized pipe that the opening the flow had to follow was choked down to the size of a pencil. If the holes in the bowls you refer to are around the rim it's not a siphon jet bowl. It's a blow out bowl, forced out by the pressure from the flush valve. No pressure= no flush. One thing you might try. You mentioned mineral buildup in the valve body. Have you checked the inlet port to the valve to be sure it's clear of buildup? Have you run a wire through the inlet?
Perhaps it's time for your church to consider a repipe job before it gets any worse. Regards, Tom

Fortunately the piping is mostly copper. It can lime up too, but seldom as bad as galvanized. The screws didn't turn easily, or shut the water off, on either of the stops I worked with, and the one I took apart had deposits on the rubber seal. I am thinking the older ones could have even worse deposits and perhaps not even be clear open. My question is if I clean the stops up now, can I hope for them to work for a while?

Ripping old pipes out is a big mess. Locally we are going to have to bite that bullet in the high school where they are constantly patching up old galvanized stuff. The school was built after they should have known better. I am negative on galvanized and cringe every time I walk through a plumbing supply and see so much of it for aisle. Bad hard water area here.

Good morning Labman,
Cleaning up the washers and seats on the stops can't hurt. Or you could contact a Sloan Sales Company and get parts and rebuild the bad stops or just replace them completely.
I'm with you on galvanized piping. I have galvanized in my 50 year old home and all I hope is that it outlasts me. I hate to repipe a house. In fact I hate ALL remodels. Double labor tearing out and reinstalling besides being a dirty messy job. Good luck with your church job. Tom