Shower works but bath doesn't. Sterling fixture, 1973

[mm]

Hello again.

I would just plunge in and do this if it were at my house, but it's an ex-girlfriend and I don't want to make more than one trip, if possible. Certainly no more than two. Any help is appreciated.

She has a bathtub with Sterling faucets, and when the valve is set for the tub spigot, barely any water comes out, hot or cold. When turned towards the shower, the shower works fine, hot and cold.

It seems very unlikely that the tub spigot is clogged, right?, so that leaves the diverter valve.

Especially since the valve is a little harder to turn than mine for the first 30 degrees and then very hard to turn for the next 15 degrees. At that point it's even harder yet and I'm afraid I'll make things worse if I force it. (My own nameless diverter valve turns about 190 degrees before stopping. This one only 45 degrees.)

Can I take this apart from the bathtub side???? I'm thinking it needs some plumbers grease and it feels like it needs some crumbling parts removed. Is there really something that can crumble? Should I bring my box of 0-rings?

I've looked but haven'f found an exploded view of a Sterling valve, or any valve.

If I have to unsolder the valve and put in another one, I can do it, but it's probably more than I'm willing to do

It's the original plumbing from about 1973. Chrome, with fluted ball- shapped handles, if that matters. (I figure most valves are pretty much alike.)

Thanks

[Rose]

Ex-girlfriend? 1973 model? Take a shower before you go over.

[mm]

In case I wasn't clear, this is a separate diverter valve, btween the hot and cold. Not a handle in the spigot that pulls up and makes the water got to the shower.

[Red Green]

mm wrote in news: [e-mail]:

There was a celcon/nylon washer in the one I rebuilt. It got jambed up and deformed. I think you will find just getting a new diverter valve is fastest, cheapest, easiest and sure fire. Brog probably has it. Bring in the old one with you.

I put a pdf in alt.binaries.test with a subject title "Diverter PDF" It's a parts diagram for an old 3 handle Central Brass fixture. E is the diverter stem. Item 11 is the washer I spoke of. Hopefully it relates to what you're working on...the shower, not the ex-g.

[mm]

Yeah, I'll bet it's something like that.

No kidding!

OK.

Thanks a lot.

Wow. I read your post about an hour after you posted it. I went to that group and dl'd the last 100, 200, then 2000 headers, and still it only went back a half hour! Next I tried the last 10,000, and that had them (some one line header file, and the pdf file separately)

I forget what newsgroup server I'm using, but it had 20 million posts available in that group.

Actually, it looks quite a bit like her. And her faucet.

We have a good relationship. We talk on the phone a lot during working hours, about lots of subjects (neither of us is shirking his job) and we occasionally do favors for each other. And I like fixing things so only half of that effort is a favor. But she lives miles away and is busy and only home once in a while, and would never give me a key to her house even for me to do her a favor, even though I don't steal and she has nothing I would want to steal and even though I've known her 12 years. When I disabled my door jamb switch and left my car lights on, she didn't even want to give me a hotshot, even though I assured her I had done this 100 times and never damaged anything. That's why we're not married. (Although she probably has her own reasons) I actually have gotten at least 100 jumps in 40 years. Most of them were in 15 of those years, when I had a 6-volt battery and a few othewr years, like the year I had an old battery and was about to buy a new car. Then I got a Battery-Buddy, and it works great. It trips when there is still enough power to start the car. (It doesn't work when the battery is really no good, because then just trying to start the car, which it can do, trips the battery buddy. But wth one 1/2" wrench, one can bypass the buddy in a situation like that.

You know exactly one time out of 100 I did connect the battery cables backwards and got a big spark, but I kept track of the other car and I didn't damage either one of the cars. I must have been lucky.

BTW isn't one much more likely to damage his own car, the one with the dead battery, than to damage the car giving the jump? How could my dead battery overpower his good one? How could maybe 10 volts overpower 14? It seems much more likely, his good one would overpower my dead one and put reverse polarlity into my electrical system. And damage my car rather than the other one.

[Chris]

Put in new guts for diverter valve. Fairly easy to do. Your local box store should have the guts for it. My house was built in the 50's and has three valve system and I can still get parts for things like this.

Chris

[mm]

These days that's amazing. I'll do that if I can. Thanks.

This is why I asked in the first place. Now I'll try to get there early, instead of 3PM, so that it's still light out when I have to go to the store. Once it gets dark I feel like going home. Although she is supposed to give me dinner for something like this, and she likes to eat dinner at dinner time. I could trade dinner in for lunch, but I'd rather have dinner.

Another issue, she doesn't have many valves in her house. When I replaced a washer in the basement sink, I had to turn off all the water to the house. She does have a wood panel behind the valves of the bathtub, but I didn't think to check if there are valves there. She could do that, if she's willing to. Sometimes she's in a bad mood (for lots of good reasons, unrelated to me, but I still try to avoid her then.)

My house,, built in 1979, has valves everywhere they should be. Is that required by code now, or did I just get a better quality house? We both are in the same county and we both have copper pipes.

So if I take out the guts, I probably have to leave the water off while I go to the store. HOpefully it will only be the water to the bathtub, but if she hasn't enough valves, it may be the water to the whole house. If her house were my house this wouldn't matter, becasue when I'm at the store, I don't need water.

[Red Green]

mm wrote in news: [e-mail]:

You don't have to shut the water off at all since it's 3 valves. The diverter only directs water. The H&C stems provide flow.

[Chris]

There is no reason to shut the water off to change the diverter valve out if you have a three valve system.

Chris

[mm]

OH, yeah. Duh. I can only hope I would have figured that out once I got there.

Maybe it's normal for someone with an ex-girlfriend who looks like a diverter stem to be fixated on her valves. I hope so.

[Jeff Wisnia]

Which reminds me....

"Some things are exciting to me, Like nipples and elbows," said he; "And whether I'm plumbing Or contemplate coming, our union suits me to a tee."

Whatever happens, don't faucet with the ex-girlfriend.

Jeff