Hi,
I wonder if someone can offer some advice on this?
A female friend of mine had a problem with her toilet not flushing. I made a quick inspection and realised that the siphon was buggy so I fitted a new one for her. It was a closed cistern so I had to remove the cistern to fit the siphon.
Before I removed the siphon I realised that the valve on it was fitted in quite snugly behind the siphon. An ex had fitted the cistern for her. Anyhow, when I removed the cistern I had to uncouple the mains water pipe from the intake of the valve. Alas, the thread on this upright valve was buggered so I had to go and buy a new upright valve for the cistern. I could not get an identical valve anywhere but bought the, excuse the pun, bog-stand upright one from Wickes which is 99% identical but with a slightly different shaped head.
When I fitted the upright valve in - it fits just behind the siphon at the rear right of the cistern as you look at it - the valve would not quite fit. The head on it appears to be just too wide, was pushing against the wall of the cistern and then, no matter how much I tightened it, there was obviously a small gap at the bottom of the cistern and so there was a leak.
I managed to remove the head of the valve and put it back on at 180 degrees and it fitted just fine. So I tighted everything up, poured some water into the cistern and there was no leek. Problem - not solved. (The previous valve was also fitted in very snugly at a slight angle.)
Alas, in tightening up the nut on the valve attaching it to the cistern means that the valve turned EVER SO SLIGHTLY inside the cistern itself and now the cup/ball-c*ck runs up against the base of the siphon and, of course, when water fills the cistern the ball-c*ck is not freely moving, does not rise and does not turn the water off.
I seem to be caught in a dilemma whereas if I do not tighten the nut on the valve where it enters the cistern I get a slight leak. However, if I tightend it enough to stop the leak the valve turns/twists inside the cistern and I have the ball-c*ck issue. The plastic is too fragile to grip whilst tightening and so it is night impossible to stop it moving. It seems that the gap between the siphon and the valve is so small that one or two milimeters at most is the difference between success and failure.
My female friend now tells me that it was "a bugger" to put in in the first place.
I replaced the valve in the cistern with an upright valve, similar but not identical to the upright valve that was in it, but I now wonder if there is another valve that I could fit in here?
The cistern was originally purchased in Wickes btw. Surely, the design of cisterns, siphons and valves is such that they would not have such tight margins in place?
Thanks in advance for any constructive help or advice,
John.