[afaroo]

Hello Hkstroud,

Great job done, I have mentioned this in my post #30, Thanks.

John

[AnnieEastCoast]

AARRRHHH! It's a l m o s t working. It must be so painful for you experts to hear my dilemma, since you all can fix this with one hand tied behind your back and blindfolded. :D

I got the water tank filling up, (YEAH!) but then when I flushed... it stopped. So I had to "tap" the float down a little to get the water going. Sigh!!

I think I'm just tired with my kids all day, so maybe I'll look at John's instructions again tomorrow morning, when I'm fresh as a daisy. :)

I'm sure this is an easy, easy, easy, super duper easy fix.

Thank you all soooooooooooo very much.

[massplumber2008]

You're right... I'm dying to reach through the screen and just fix it! But the nice thing here is that when you're done you get to stick your tongue out at hubby and the mother-in-law... like this ---> :p

Fresh start will resolve this!

Great job to everyone involved on this. Thank you!

[hkstroud]

Make sure that float is not rubbing against the tank. Almost has to be that or the cap is not turned quite far enough.

Take a break, you deserve it.

[AnnieEastCoast]

Thanks, Mark. I want to stick my tongue out, go "Ptthhh", then put my thumbs in my ears and wiggle my fingers and say "na na na naa".:D

My mother-in-law and her fav son are two peas in a pod. My husband has no backbone when it comes to his mother. Whatever she says, goes! (LONG story here.) They both have the Jekyll and Hyde personality, and I worry that my older child has inherited that disorder. :eek:

Harold, I don't think the float is rubbing against the tank. I'll take a picture so you can see.

I'm up early (5:30 am) worrying over this.:)

I'll test again today and let you know.

BTW, whilst this is going on, our newest toilet (10 years old) in our powder room has been leaking when flushed. Groan! For that, I'm calling a plumber! I think it's the seal at the base of the toilet, right? I ain't lifting no heavy toilet off the floor. :) When it rains, it pours.

[hkstroud]

Good morning Annie,

Today is going to be a good day. You are going to fix the toilet and it's going to be easy.
When you get a chance get another fill valve, just a fill valve

Turn water off. Reach down under the black float, pull the gray plastic ring up.
Unhook the little black tube that goes from the fill valve to the over flow tube.

Pull the fill valve up and out of the toilet.

Separate the new fill valve the same way. Put the new fill valve on the shaft in the toilet. Top of fill valve should be just below the top of the tank. Push the gray ring down to lock in place. Reconnect little black tube to overflow pipe.

Paint MIL's picture on old float and put in trash.

[AnnieEastCoast]

Good morning Harold,

Ha ha to your comments. Love it. Actually, I'd like to put her face on a dart board. Hee hee heeee :D

This Fluidmaster toilet repair kit is brand new. The toilet had 23-year-old components, so I replaced all of them with new parts. When flushed, the Fluidmaster float just needs a gentle tap to start filling.

At least it's 99.99% working, so that makes me happy. No weird flushes, no running water.

But I am going to buy the new One2Flush, and replace this new Fluidmaster parts with it, now that I know how to replace toilet parts -- thanks to all of you. :) I've heard very good reviews about the One2Flush, and it saves a lot of money by conserving water, so we'll see.

[hkstroud]

Something is wrong right now, we just don't know what, may be cap not seated correctly, may be seal, it could be a defective part. By replacing with a complete new Fluidmaster valve you only have to unlock the locking ring, slide the new complete valve on, and the problem goes away no matter what it is. Fluidmaster is generally consider the top of the line.

[AnnieEastCoast]

My first ever toilet-repair is now officially complete.

I did it. :)

This last problem wasn't the cap; it was me. I needed to adjust the float, and the new Fluidmaster toilet is working like a charm. I wasted several gallons of water flushing 7 or 8 times, just to be sure.

Thanks to each and every one of you: Mark, Harold, KISS, John (did I miss anyone?). Each of you was so instrumental in my success.

Do you know what my husband said when I was working on this toilet? He said, "Why are you destroying the house?" Sigh! No compliments from him, but my little kids are very impressed with mommy. :)

I've put pictures of my finished product with the new Fluidmaster components and the new flexible toilet supply line. :D

Have a wonderful day.

[afaroo]

Hello Annie,

Thanks for the updates, if there are no complements from your husband there are a lot of complements from us, you done excellent job congratulation for the job well done, Thanks.

Best Regards,
John

[KISS]

Congratulations!

Just a couple of things and your finished:

1. Move the little blue clamp on the hose to the top of the fill valve like it is on the other side. It's a mineature hise clamp and it keeps the tubig from falling off.

2. Remove the label on the flex line.

[AnnieEastCoast]

Thanks, KISS.

Re (1) will do.

Re (2), there are hose labels still attached to newer faucet hoses and the other two toilet supply lines in our house, done before we moved in five years ago. Hence, I figured, that must the normal thing to do; so if it needs replacing, someone else (like me) knows what size of hose to buy. Since I know what size I needed for this project, and I have pictures as proof, I can remove the label.

Just wondering if there is there a plumbing reason to remove hose labels?

Thanks for all your help.

[KISS]

(2) Lazy plumber

[hkstroud]

CONGRATULATIONS
KUDOOS
And
HIGH FIVES

Take you self out to dinner.

(I think Hubby is just jealous, but will be bragging about you to all his friends tomorrow .)

[massplumber2008]

Congratulations to you...great effort! Here's the booby prize for the hubby...:D I can have a matching plunger mailed directly to your Mother-in-law for a small fee!

[speedball1]

Just think! It only took six pages to change out that ballcock.
Congrats Annie on a job well done. Tom

[AnnieEastCoast]

Oh all my wonderful helpers. I'm not out of the woods, yet!!! Sigh! :(

I've had this new Fluidmaster toilet tank filled with water for at least three days, and for the past almost 48 hours, I've been flushing it, testing it. No leaks, whatsoever. Not even a drop.

This morning, I had a minor disaster. I was heading out the door to get my kids to school, when I needed to get something from that bathroom. I stepped on a squishy, soaking bathroom rug! Yikes! And Yuck! (I should mention, the bathroom toilet was fine at 6:30 a.m. when I did a test flush. By 8:30 a.m. the tank had leaked a lot.)

Having become a mini expert in toilet repair, I did not panic. :) I turned off the water, then checked for the leak. It was coming from both tank bolts, in a fairly steady "drip drip drip". So I emptied out the tank completely, cleaned up the floor and went on my errands.

Only now (around 4:30 pm) I'm able to check the situation again. The hex nut and metal washer on both bolts have come loose. I haven't removed the tank yet, but both hex nuts & metal washers jangled when I touched them. That shouldn't be.

My question is, how could they come loose? Did I miss a step in tightening them?

I will remove the tank and re-tighten the loosened nuts. I'm worried if this horrible leak should happen when I'm not home.

Thanks again.

[afaroo]

Hi Annie,

Sorry to hear about this leak but it can be fixed easy, open the link below will give an idea that what is needed, check if the rubber washers are still there if not you would need to buy new rubber washers.
Reinstall the two bolts with new washers, as follows.
1. By hand very carefully reinstall the nuts and washers on the bolts, running them all the way up by hand.
2. With a wrench, very carefully final tighten the nuts, but not too tight as it is very easy to overload the china bowl or tank, resulting in breaking one or both, ruining the entire toilet assembly. The nuts don't have to be extremely tight just up snug so as to just slightly begin to compress the washers, good luck.

John

How to Replace a Tank-to-Toilet Gasket | eHow.com

[AnnieEastCoast]

John, thanks for your tips. I know this is an easy fix (fingers crossed).

I just checked the link you provided, and it mentioned using 3 rubber washers. Fluidmaster only asked to use 2. See their instructions:

- Bolt and rubber washer in the tank
- Brass washer and hex nut, below the tank <-- here, I would have preferred a rubber washer before the brass washer
- then rubber washer, brass washer and wing nut

http://www.fluidmaster.com/pdfs/6106_instructions.pdf

I will tackle this problem either later tonight or tomorrow morning and will report back.

Thanks very much.

[KISS]

Just another FYI. Fluidmaster came up with a newer valve that won't run. Basically if the tank water falls without flushing, the incoming water won't flow.

That basically fixes the scenero that you had. You would only have to mop up a tanks worth.

6 pages and counting