plumbing -- flapper leaking

[Mr. Speck]

Hey y'all!!

I'm trying to fix my toilet and the problem is I don't know shit-- so i need some help! I flush the toilet, the water fills up the tank, and then the bobby thing stops the water flowing, and thats all good, but then you can hear a very slight leak (it's annoying cuz it's dripping inside and you can hear from the other room (plus i'm wasting water)). It stops if the flapper happens to land in exactly the right spot (and this is a margin of about 1 millimeter (no joke -- which happens about 1/20 tries)). It also stops if i push on it with about 5-10lbs pressure. When i look at the underside of the flapper it looks fine and feels fine, same with the hard seal it mates with. Any ideas on how to fix this? I've got no clue

thanks!!

-mr speck

[Roger]

Turn off supply valve under toilet, flush toilet, remove flapper valve and take to hardware and get a new one of same design - old ones get cracked, warped and weathered after awhile. Before installing and seating the replacement valve, use 0000 steel wool to smoothe the valve seat, where the water leaves the tank on its way to the bowl. Sometimes just burnishing the valve seat by itself will help leakage, if the flapper is in fair shape.

[George E. Cawthon]

Flappers age and go bad. Buy a new one of the same configuration. If it is the standard flapper, you can get one for 99cents, or you may have to pay as much as $2.99. Close the water supply valve, flush the toilet and, hold the flapper up until most of the water runs out. Look at how the flapper is attached, probably 2 little flexible ears at the hinge (just pull off from the hinge), and look at how the chain is attached. Buy a similar one and put it on.

BTW. If there is a chain from the flapper to the flush handle, the best replacement is a piece of fishing line(just make it the minimum length for the flapper to close and not hang up on anything). Then you won't have that annoying chain hang up on something and keep the flapper open.

[Grimey]

Yeah, but they don't die. They just hook up with aged old Johnny's..

[Jim Thompson]

ROTFLMAO!

...Jim Thompson

[Jim Thompson]

[snip]

How are you tieing the fish line so it doesn't gradually loosen?

...Jim Thompson

[Mr. Speck]

Thanks for your help y'all..

The new flapper didn't help, so i tried the steel wool. That made it a little worse (i probably rubbed it a bit too hard, and it may not have been 0000 steel wool, but it was finest i had). So I bought a whole new valve apparatus, took apart the toilet, put it back together and the leak is fixed! only problem now is that there is a slight leak where the bolt connects to the inside of the toilet tank. I just reused the rubber gaskets-- should I have replaced them? Also the leak seems to lessen when I tighten, but then sometimes it seems to get worse- it's hard to tell... (it's a very slight leak)-- but I'm afraid of tightening too much-- how do I know what torque is too much? (I already heard a cracking sound, and that freaked me out, but I don't see any cracks anywhere)

thanks,

-mr speck