On Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:22:48 -0600, Red Green
wrote:

mm wrote in
:

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

There was a celcon/nylon washer in the one I rebuilt. It got jambed up and
deformed.

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

I think you will find just getting a new diverter valve is
fastest, cheapest, easiest and sure fire. Brog probably has it.

No kidding!

Bring in the old one with you.

OK.

I put a pdf in alt.binaries.test with a subject title "Diverter PDF" It's a

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.

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.

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.