The drain was all rusted and the faucet handles finally broke off beyond repair. It’s never been changed, the previous owner gave me a credit before we moved in and I quickly understood why. The only real way to change the faucet and drain was to remove the sink from the wall and the floor, so the faucet and drain could be accessible. There’s not enough clearance when it’s still attached to the wall to be able to stick a wrench in there to remove the locking nut for the drain and the locking nuts for the two faucet handles…
In addition, this sink was not simply bolted to the wall. It was glued, so removing it would destroy the drywall and I would need to re-drywall and replace the faucet and drain. Even my trusty plumber didn’t really want to do the job. He said I needed to find someone to first remove the sink.. But then if that’s the case, there’s no point in me getting the plumber to change it….
So, finally, when the handle broke off beyond repair, I spent last weekend trying to figure out how to change it without destroying my wall….YouTube was no help, because all the YouTube videos showed people removing the sink from the wall.
Removing the p-trap, and water lines was the easy part…
[img_assist|nid=27707|title=ptrap|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
Removing the the two valves and spout was easy too. I just put a large vise grip on the fixture on top and turned, since I didn’t care about damaging the finish of the fixture..Things turned enough from the top, that I was able to tilt the valve and spout and reach the locking nut on the bottom with a long vice grip, and I shredded the locking nut taking it off.
But taking off the drain was incredibly difficult..
[img_assist|nid=27708|title=drain|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
Accessing the lock nut on the drain was really hard, since it was right under here…
[img_assist|nid=27709|title=drain|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
and there was no room to put a wrench or any tool up there. Not even short hand offset wrenches, or angled plumber pipe wrenches like these:
So, after trying numerous things, brute force etc…I decided to go to Oreilly Auto Parts and borrow the inner tie rod removal tool that I once borrowed to remove the inner tie rods to my Audi…
Why not, since loaner tools are FREE as long as you return them in 2 weeks.
[img_assist|nid=27710|title=tie rod tool|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
The tie rod tool is a big ole pipe that has a bunch of different sized steel inserts for different hex nuts to turn (different tie rods on cars). I hoped one of them would fit on the drain nut, and I would slip the entire pipe over the drain and turn the nut from the bottom…
It WORKED…Sort of… The pipe too long so I could only turn drain nut down about 1cm. But that was enough for me to lift up the rusted drain from the top…and have enough room to…. cut the drain with my air grinder… heh heh..brute force…
Putting the new drain in was easy since the new drains are all plastic and are all hand-tightened with collar you hand turn… No tools required.
Putting the new spout on was easy too since it was easy to access the tightening bolt.
However, the faucet valves were a real PITA…Moen really cheapened their design, and the way the new valves are attached, there’s a C-clip on top that holds the valve to sink, and there’s a very thin lock nut on the bottom you turn to tighten it.
[img_assist|nid=27713|title=locknut|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
The problem is the lock nut on the bottom is so thin, it’s hard to reach and grip in a tight spot, especially on a pedestal sink. There was no way to get a tool in there to turn the lock nut…
[img_assist|nid=27714|title=grrr|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
Also, you’ll notice Moen’s new brilliant cheapened design on the valve, where the water line inlets are directly welded onto the main valve shaft. That prevents installer from using any of these long tube nut wrenches, since the welded inlet would prevent the long tube wrenches from turning.
Total cheap and idiotic design that adds labor costs to the consumer.
So after thinking for a few hours, and almost caving in and deciding to remove the pedestal since from the wall, I came up with a crazy idea.
I got a PVC plastic pipe cap, and hammered the brass locknut into it. And used superglue and bakesoda to bond the locknut to the PVC cap so it would not come out.
[img_assist|nid=27715|title=pvc1|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
I could then use the PVC cap as a hand tightening tool to hand tighten the lock nut onto the valve, and not use any wrenches etc in that tight space. Something like this:
It worked!
[img_assist|nid=27718|title=pvc4|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
If you notice, the lock nut is on the bottom, then pvc cap on top, and the metal washer on top of the PVC cap. This is fine because the PVC cap is sandwiched between the sink and the lock nut, so even if someone tried to pull up on the faucet handle from the top with great force, the valve won’t move. Also, since the pvc cap is sandwiched between the metal washer and the lock nut, there’s no longer metal to metal contact, so over long time, the lock nut wont bind to the washer from rust. It should be easy to remove the valve in the future, hand turning the PVC pipe caps.
Shame on you Moen for not making this install easier like this…
[img_assist|nid=27719|title=done!|desc=|link=node|align=left|width=500]
Was it worth the time doing it this way, instead of ripping out the sink and redoing the wall… I don’t know…
But if you folks ever need to replace your faucet and drain on a pedestal sink, but don’t want to rip the sink out of the wall, now you know it’s possible!
