Help, please! I know there must be some way to adjust a frost free hydrant when they quit working. I am tired of replacing them every few years. I have a hydrant now that the flow of water is a mere trickle. It shuts off just fine but very little water comes out anymore. Can any one out there tell me how to fix it without buying a whole new hydrant? Thanks !!
assuming it is a Simmons, there are repair kits, I rebuilt the one at my carport this year. I went for just the plunger (N on the diagram). the whole repair kit isn't much less than a new one, but at least you might be able to fix it from the top. i couldn't and ended up digging it up, unscrewing it and rebuilding on the tailgate of the truck.
I had the same thing happen. I unscrewed the head, pulled out the shaft and found the plunger had come loose from the shaft. Unfortunately the threads on the shaft were badly rusted, which meant replacing the shaft. That meant I'd have to order a replacement since they are not a stocked item. In the meantime, I needed water and there is no way to shut off that hydrant by itself. I opted to temporarily just JB Weld the plunger to the shaft, go without water overnight, and put it back together in the morning. Since then, I ordered a new shaft and plunger, which is in my garage for when I need it. I may as well leave that JB Welded one till it fails, and that was 2 years ago.
This model uses a completely steel shaft that screws into the plunger. In my opinion, it's cheap junk. The bottom of the shaft should be brass by the threads so they dont rust, because the bottom sits in water all the time.
I should mention that I coated the entire bottom 4 inches of shaft with thew JB Weld to prevent more rusting. Then I spray painted the rest of the shaft before I reinstalled it. When I do need to replace it, I will paint the new shaft too, and have considered using something like teflon tape to seal any water out of the threads where they enter the plunger.
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