{"id":656,"date":"2000-10-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2000-10-27T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=656"},"modified":"2012-03-07T20:21:38","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T01:21:38","slug":"s_logs-dashew-dashew66","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/s_logs-dashew-dashew66\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mother of All O-Ring Battles"},"content":{"rendered":"
In "The Mother of all O-Ring Battles," the Dashews learn that the easy approach is often the best.<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

For years we’ve prided ourselves on having good access to anything and everything which needs maintenance on our designs. Of course this is based on real-world experience, and when something is out of our realm of experience…<\/p>\n

So recently the galley faucet started to leak when it was turned on. Probably an “O” ring seal. Faucets are no big deal, although we’ve never dealt with one on a boat before.<\/p>\n

The first thing to do is check the notebooks with all the manuals for the faucet service drawings. Oops – the plumbers must have forgotten to give that one back. So here we have this shiny chrome body and handle, with nary a fastener to be seen on the top.<\/p>\n

Gentle pull, smooth application of force, no luck. Then crawl on top of the sink counter and look at the back of the handle. Voila! A tiny set screw. Three trips to the engine room for the right allen key and off comes the handle. Now what? <\/p>\n

There is no discernible way of taking this thing apart from the top. And under the sink? Would you believe there’s a sink on one side and ballast tank on the other so close that getting a wrench on the fasteners is almost impossible.<\/p>\n

Careful examination and a lot of cussing reveals a wedge-shaped piece of metal, held in place with a hard-to-reach nut. Off to the local plumbing supply store with the evidence – a handle – to see if we can find some “expert” advice.<\/p>\n

“Looks like a Moen,” says one counterman.<\/p>\n

“It must be a Grohe, one of the old models” says the other.<\/p>\n

Return to the boat with a special wrench and wishes of “Good luck – those suckers are usually rusted solid.”<\/p>\n

How right he is. No joy with the special wrench. OK – enough of this. We’ll get out the hacksaw and disassemble this the hard way, piece by piece!<\/p>\n

However, we’ve got to get the old sails off the boat and make ready for new. So we’ll live with the drip for the next few days.<\/p>\n

In the process of re-assembly we leave off retainer and top, so we see where the faucet is actually leaking. Turn on the pressure pump and wham – out comes the body of the valve, along with a high volume of fresh water directed at the headliner and thence all over the galley.<\/p>\n

So that’s how you get out the faucet bodies! With body in hand we return to the plumbing supply.<\/p>\n

“Hey, that’s a Valley head!” says counterman #1.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, and I had to special order a body earlier this week,” says counterman #2.<\/p>\n

“No, I thought we had one hanging on the wall,” from #1.<\/p>\n

They did, and within 5 minutes of arrival back aboard, the galley sink was as good as new.<\/p>\n

Moral: Always look for the easy approach – there usually is one which works – rather than getting destructive. If the simple approach is not immediately self-evident, put off the major disassembly until you can think things through. Sometimes all it takes is a little pressure in the right spot…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In "The Mother of all O-Ring Battles," the Dashews learn that the easy approach is often the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beowulf-logs","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}