Today's plans went out the window shortly after I woke. Upon visiting the smallest room in the house I discovered a puddle. My immediate thought was "Perhaps Jan had an accident during a nocturnal visit?" However Jan mentioned she had discovered the puddle when visiting the room in the wee hours <pun intended>. Obviously there was a leak which needed to be rectified.
Having no prior experience with this particular device it was slow progress working out how to remove the cistern. Eventually I managed to separate the cistern from the lower bowl only to hear the sound of two nuts falling off inside the cavity behind the bowl.
With the cistern removed I could see what had happened. Instead of the two securing screws inside the cistern being removed the nuts on the ends of the threaded "dogs" had been unscrewed and dropped off.
Holes where the "dogs" fit.
The circular opening in the top of the bowl are too small for my hand so I resorted to taping a bent piece of 16 gauge wire onto a length of 5mm timber dowel to recover the nuts and washers.
I could now see what had caused the nuts to unscrew from the dogs. When the toilet was installed the plumber had applied sealer to the screws which had locked them into the dogs. Rather than the screws unscrewing from the dogs the entire screw and dog had rotated unscrewing the nuts on the underside of the dogs.
The braided hose was replaced and then the toilet reassembled.
The major problem was fitting the washers and nuts back onto the underside of the dogs. I used the piece of 16 gauge wire to position the washers and nuts below the hole before carefully screwing in the dogs from above. Next the nuts then had to be secured from below whilst the dogs were tightened from above. I made a temporary spanner from some scrap flat bar to achieve this.
Dog and nut
The cistern could then be secured through its base with the two screws. But not before I'd removed all the old sealer and cleaned the threads. Before tightening the screws I applied replacement silicone sealer.
The toilet will have to remain out of action until I'm satisfied the sealer has set.
That was the morning wasted!
Meanwhile we had a couple of deliveries. Jan's new appliance arrived from England via DHL. It only took five days for the journey. Which begs the question…. Why does it take more than five days for Australia Post to deliver a letter across the city? I cut the UK plug off the cord and replaced it with a spare AS/NZ version.
The second deliver was something Jan had ordered for me.
A collapsible silicon bowl and mug for my planned cycling trip
Very lightweight and compact
2 comments :
I know what you mean. NZ Post are also very slow. I bought a catchcan for the Jeep from Western Filters in NSW I think and it only took 4 days to arrive and was considerably cheaper than purchasing in NZ.
I'm not surprised about the price. Our eldest grandson was amazed at the low price of 12V lithium batteries in Oz compared to NZ (half the price). You would think NZ Post would be fast as the distances aren't great :-)
Have you had the catch can long and are you happy with it?
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