Well, thank goodness for simple solutions!
I've been staying at an on-premises apartment, where I work at an out-of-state job, a couple weeks a month. Everything has been absolutely fine- until last night- when I went to turn on the cold water in the bathroom sink- and the handle FELL OFF and went CLANK into the sink.
This was about 9:00PM. I quickly looked for the source of the problem, and given some empty screw threads in a boss inside the underside of the handle- it obviously was the screw that held the handle onto the stem, that had come loose and fallen out. But, that screw went in FROM BELOW. As in the screw had now fallen down into the stem assembly, and was inaccessible.
There is a plastic spline adapter that connects the smaller spline of the faucet stem to the large splines inside the handle- and my first thought was to try and just pull that adapter outward and off, thinking that it might be able to pop past the retaining ring. No dice, the retaining ring had too much overlap on the adapter- it wasn't coming out that way.
Well, I REALLY didn't want to have to call the owner of the company at 9pm on a Saturday night for something like this, so I did a little experimentation, and figured out that a thin-blade flat-head screwdriver would just wedge into the screw hole in the spline adapter, enough for me to turn the adapter and turn the water on and off. At least good enough, for me to wash up and take a shower. This could now wait until the next morning.
Today I took a close look at it- and sussed out, that even though nothing on top was obviously removable at first glance- the construction underneath, indicated that SOMETHING had to thread onto the stem from above, to attach the faucet valve to the sink. So, I went and grabbed my big slip-joint pliers, and some stiff 1/4" thick silicone sheet fragments (we use a lot of that here, as transformer mounting damping, so small pieces are constantly being left over from that), and used the silicone foam to convert the slip-joints into effectively soft-jaw pliers, so I could twist on the faucet upper housing. Voila, it threaded right off. And after removing the spline adapter, THERE was the errant screw.. Got it out, got the handle, upper housing and spline adapter screwed back together, and presto-chango- the whole assembly is now screwed securely back onto the stem, and no one would even know anything had even happened, by looking. And no one had to call a plumber, on a weekend...
Regards,
Gordon.
I've been staying at an on-premises apartment, where I work at an out-of-state job, a couple weeks a month. Everything has been absolutely fine- until last night- when I went to turn on the cold water in the bathroom sink- and the handle FELL OFF and went CLANK into the sink.
This was about 9:00PM. I quickly looked for the source of the problem, and given some empty screw threads in a boss inside the underside of the handle- it obviously was the screw that held the handle onto the stem, that had come loose and fallen out. But, that screw went in FROM BELOW. As in the screw had now fallen down into the stem assembly, and was inaccessible.
There is a plastic spline adapter that connects the smaller spline of the faucet stem to the large splines inside the handle- and my first thought was to try and just pull that adapter outward and off, thinking that it might be able to pop past the retaining ring. No dice, the retaining ring had too much overlap on the adapter- it wasn't coming out that way.
Well, I REALLY didn't want to have to call the owner of the company at 9pm on a Saturday night for something like this, so I did a little experimentation, and figured out that a thin-blade flat-head screwdriver would just wedge into the screw hole in the spline adapter, enough for me to turn the adapter and turn the water on and off. At least good enough, for me to wash up and take a shower. This could now wait until the next morning.
Today I took a close look at it- and sussed out, that even though nothing on top was obviously removable at first glance- the construction underneath, indicated that SOMETHING had to thread onto the stem from above, to attach the faucet valve to the sink. So, I went and grabbed my big slip-joint pliers, and some stiff 1/4" thick silicone sheet fragments (we use a lot of that here, as transformer mounting damping, so small pieces are constantly being left over from that), and used the silicone foam to convert the slip-joints into effectively soft-jaw pliers, so I could twist on the faucet upper housing. Voila, it threaded right off. And after removing the spline adapter, THERE was the errant screw.. Got it out, got the handle, upper housing and spline adapter screwed back together, and presto-chango- the whole assembly is now screwed securely back onto the stem, and no one would even know anything had even happened, by looking. And no one had to call a plumber, on a weekend...
Regards,
Gordon.
