Leaking Toilet Tank

I'm just looking for a little advice: my upstairs toilet tank started leaking. When I nudged the corroded looking bolt head on the inside of the tank, the thing broke off and Niagara started to fall. Honest... I barely touched it. I flushed the can, turned off the water supply and reached for a trash can all in the same motion. (My flying skills remain useful to me after all these years.)

Anyway, the other mounting bolt didn't look much better than the first, so I decided to redo the tank. I got a new ballcock assembly, flapper assembly, tank-to-bowl gasket, and a pair of tank-to-bowl bolts/washers/rubber seals/wingnuts.

Reinstallation seemed pretty straightforward: no leaks (I thought) and the flusher works fine. Anyway, before I get into trouble, should I do anything other than reach into the tank with a big long slotted screwdriver and tighten down the wingnut some more? I did that and improved things tremendously, but it still has a very slow leak. Before I crunch it down more, I wanted to check with somebody who knows plumbing.

The bolts went together like this (from inside the tank to outside): bolt, rubber seal, metal washer. This was inserted from the inside of the tank and then bolted from the outside with a stainless nut directly against the porcelain. I tightened this down but didn't really put a tremendous amount of ass on it. The tank was then mounted on the toilet proper and I inserted a rubber seal, metal washer and finally a wingnut. The wingnut is what I tightened down pretty good. Should I put more muscle to the wingnut, or do you think the problem is the nut that is sandwiched between the outside of the tank and the two porcelain surfaces?

Enquiring minds want to know. In the meanwhile, I'm catching the little bit of seepage in a trashcan.

What a pain in the ass this has been. Those original bolts were too corroded to hold the tank, but they were also too corroded to unscrew. I had to hacksaw them off. That was more than a little awkward.

Reply to
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
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No the metal washer should be under the bolt head and the rubber washer between the inside of the tank and the metal washer.

Just make sure everything was clean. Old lime build up can be a problem. I might also suggest that if the tank is cracked, you may not see it, but it means a new tank. Depending on the age of the toilet you may be better off getting a new one than trying to replace the tank. A good new one will work much better than the earlier low volume flush models did.

This was inserted from the inside

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

Reply to
F Warren

I would push down on the tank as I tightened the screw. So instead of tighening the tank down by tighenting the screw, you are actually turning the screw to take up slack created by pushing the tank down.

bolts/washers/rubber

Reply to
Art

Ha! As in pitch and trim for 80MPH, look for a landing spot and troubleshoot the engine all at the same time?

Michael Nickolas

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Reply to
Michael Nickolas

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