On 10/02/2018 18:50, wrote:
On Saturday, 10 February 2018 12:40:13 UTC, wrote:
On 09/02/2018 23:00, tabbypurr wrote:

Replacing the cartridge in an early Aqualisa 200, but could not get the rear o-ring out. Showerdoc is hopelessly optimistic when he says use a crochet hook. Maybe the design changed a bit later, there's no way to get anything behind it. The only option I can see is to skewer it, but my skewering items all failed to get far into the rubbed, it's stiff stuff.
http://i68.tinypic.com/2j31ct0.jpg

Any ideas to get this thing out? Ie what tool could I make?


NT

I had exactly this problem a few weeks ago. I heated a piece of thin
steel rod (about 3mm diameter, at a guess) so I could bend the end at 90
degrees. I then ground the end of the bent section to make a sort of
chisel and used this to cut the O ring into about 3 pieces and then fish
them out of the groove. I faffed about for days with many other methods
before trying this - it probably took 5 minutes with my gizzmo.

Well, I've been doing just this and no joy. The sharpened 2mm allen key can dig into the rubber to some extent, but that's it. The most it achieves is to move the ring round & round and maybe chip off a miniscule bit. I've seen rubber go hard but never seen anything this bad. It's like rock.

If I had endless time I'd attack it next with glacial acetic, HCl and conc sulphuric, but I don't. If I could work out how to plug a large hole in the rear I'd drill one and get much better access, but again I've got no real solution. :/


NT


I can only say that it worked for me in the same shower. Make your
chisel edge sharper. Once you've cut the ring into 3 roughly equal
segments it *will* come out.