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-cock runs up against the base of the siphon and, of course,
when water fills the cistern the ball-cock 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-cock 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.