A Faucet Test Fixture

I'm restoring an old Moen lavatory faucet, and I'd like to be able to pressure-test it before I sell it or give it away or find a use for it. I've put a new cartridge in the faucet, so there shouldn't be any problem, but I prefer to be certain of these things. Final installation is not the time to discover that there's a flaw to be corrected.

I'd also like to do the test prior to full, final reassembly of the faucet, so as not to risk any damage to its finish. All that led me to construct this fixture.

It will let me test the faucet I'm restoring now, and it'll work with any faucet with 1/2" MIP (Male Iron Pipe -- straight thread) fittings on it, which is pretty much what all faucets have.

The copper items, the two braid-covered hoses and the black 1/2" feed hose were salvage. The two 1/2" copper-to-3/8" compression fittings, and the stuff to get from 1/2" copper to 3/4" hose I had to buy new. I had hoped to find a 3/4" male hose fitting that would attach directly to 1/2" copper, but all I could find was a hose fitting for attachment to 1/2" NPT iron pipe -- hence the cumbersome-looking hose attachment end.

Anyway, it's ready to go. Here's a view of the Moen faucet's innards, assembled to the point of being operational.

Now I just need a faucet with a male hose thread on it's spout, and I can connect this faucet and pressure-test it. I don't have any indoor faucets like that, so I'll have to go out to the carport for this.

And here's the faucet connected and under full pressure.

And it appears that all is well -- operation is as it should be, and there's no leakage whatsoever when the faucet is closed.

So, now I can carry on with restoration of the faucet's shell, and find a place to stash my test fixture where I won't forget where I put it.

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Cold Weather Driveway Oil Changes

Introduction

Be the weather fair or foul, doing your own oil changes can save you money to spend on worthier things -- beer and smokes, for example.

Following are some notes and hints on driveway oil change procedure.

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Safety

If you wear a wristwatch and/or a ring, take it/them off. If it's cold out and you're wearing a scarf, make sure the scarf's ends are tucked inside your buttoned jacket. No dangling draw-cords, either.

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Gear

Pictured below is almost everything you need for a driveway oil change.

I say 'almost' because I left something out. After I'd taken the picture, I had a nagging sense that I'd forgotten something. Sure enough, I'd forgotten this.

A funnel.

Ok, so now we have everything. The socket wrench is 5/8" for the 16mm hex-head drain plug on my Ford Ranger. (5/8" = 15.875mm; it fits fine.) The drain plug on your vehicle may or may not take the same size of wrench. That plier-style filter wrench is the best thing I know of for the job -- you can really 'feel' what you're doing with it. The little oiler bottle is for wetting the new filter's gasket with oil prior to installing it.

That combination drain-pan/jug is excellent, but when I first got it years ago, it had a little shortcoming; it had no vent.

With no vent, as oil would drain quickly into the pan the oil would 'pile up' at the pan's drain opening, and there'd be a series of messy little 'eruptions' as the draining oil and the air inside the jug fought with each other. There was a flat spot on the pan's moulding that looked like it had been meant to be made a vent, so I drilled there and tapped it 1/4"-20 for a screw with a gasket washer on it. The thing now has a vent, and it accepts oil smoothly with no more splashy little eruptions. Here's a close-up of the vent.

Cold Weather

The weather today is not bad for mid-October, it's about 15° C, but it's not too difficult to do an oil change outside at much lower temperatures. An oil change is just a sequence of discrete steps, no one of which takes very long at all. So, in cold weather, you can go in and warm up between each step and it's really not an ordeal. A windless, sunny day is what you want, and there are always a few of those that come by in the course of a winter. It goes like this:

1) Open hood. Pull the dipstick. Set drain pan in place. Unscrew the sump's drain plug and let the oil begin to drain. Go inside to keep warm while the oil drains completely. Take the sump's plug with you to wipe it clean.

(I didn't mention anything about jacking or ramping the vehicle. I have it easy with my Ranger because there's enough clearance that I can get at the drain plug easily. A lot of cars need to be jacked a bit or ramped.)

If I may digress here for a moment, I must point out a little detail that quite impresses me. The drain plug on the Ranger is an M14 hex washerhead bolt with a groove machined under its head to a precise depth, and an O-ring in the groove. Here's a view of it.

The O-ring is snug -- it can't fall out and get lost, and it's impossible to ruin the O-ring by over-tightening the plug; a very nice little piece of engineering, that.

Anyway, to return to the oil change sequence --

2) Reinstall the drain plug. Drag the drain pan out from under. Remove the oil filter and set it upside down on the drain pan to empty. Go inside and warm up.

3) Install the new oil filter. Go inside and warm up.

4) Pour in a jug of oil.^[1] Put the dipstick back in. Start the engine and check that all is ok. Shut it down. Close the hood. Go inside and warm up.

5) Go out and gather up your gear and the old filter. You're done with the outdoor work. Emptying the drain-pan/jug into another jug for disposal can be done inside. I like to stuff the old, emptied filter with used paper towelling, so it won't drool oil in the garbage bag after I toss it.

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Driveway oil changes are a pretty good money-saver, especially if you watch out for specials on oil. This particular oil change was exceptionally inexpensive.

The oil was on for less than half price, and I had a $5.00-off coupon from the store's flyer. I got the oil and the filter for under $12.00. You can't beat that with a stick.

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[1] What I just said there might be very bad advice for owners of cars with small engines. The 3.o litre V6 in my Ranger happily takes an entire 5 litre jug of oil, even though its capacity is stated to be 4.3 litres. Smaller engines may have significantly smaller oil capacities. Consult the owner's manual; the oil capacity spec will be in there somewhere.

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An Auxiliary Bench Top for a Workmate

It's said that, "Necessity is the mother of invention.", and this item certainly bears that out.

Years ago, I had a commission to build a breakfast nook table, corner bench and two chairs for a lady. It was quite a project, and it taxed my workshop's resources to the limit. The chairs especially needed a dead flat work surface to be assembled on, that I could dedicate to each chair until it was done. That led me to come up with an auxiliary bench top for my Workmate. It's pictured below.

It did the job for me, and since then it's proven itself to be immensely useful, especially for doing glue-ups of various sorts.

It's mostly just a 30" x 39" piece of 1 3/32" thick, denser-than-average particleboard that I found at a local building supply. It's melamine-clad on both sides. I radiused the corners as something of a safety feature, and to preclude corner damage -- sharp corners of particleboard tend to be fragile and easily chipped. I thoroughly sealed and enameled the edges.

On the underside, I installed three cleats with a 'hook' feature for securing the top to the Workmate's jaws. Here's a view of the entire underside.



And here's a close-up of one of the cleats. You can see the notch that accepts the outboard edge of a Workmate's jaw.

So, the top attaches to the Workmate by having the Workmate's jaws opened until their outboard edges seat in the cleats' notches. A Workmate's jaws aren't designed to exert much force in the opening direction, but they don't need to; they just need to seat fully and firmly in the cleats. Here's an underside view of the installed top.

It's a very secure attachment scheme that's never given me any aggravation.

Light weight is not one of the top's virtues -- it weighs 33 lbs. That's not a problem for me because this thing has a dedicated spot in my shop where it's always ready for whatever comes up. When I do need the workmate sans top, it's no big deal to take the top off and set it aside for awhile.

I mentioned 'glue-ups' earlier, and just this past week I've been using it to glue up a table saw deck that I'm making from odds and ends of maple flooring. Here's a shot of that in progress.

Wood glue won't adhere to the melamine cladding, so cleaning up any squeeze-out that gets away from me is a breeze.

It's a versatile piece of gear that has served me well, and continues to do so.

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A Moen Lavatory Faucet Restoration

The old faucet pictured below has seen better days.

It was in our basement bathroom, where it had already seen years of service before we moved in twelve years ago.

It was still working, but its operation was getting balky and stiff, and one could charitably characterize its appearance as 'shabby'; less charitably as 'wretched'.

So, I bought a nice new chrome-plated faucet that I brought home and left sitting in its box for a good many weeks so it could get accustomed to its new address. (One doesn't want to traumatize a new plumbing fixture by installing it immediately.) Needless to say, there came a time when someone other than I decided that it was high time the new faucet got installed, so installed it got.

Now I have an old spare faucet that's just begging me to restore it to pristine condition. A new cartridge is in order, and I found a gloss enamel that's a near match for the colour, so I'll see how well I can refinish it as well.

All that said, on with dismantling it.

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The Knob and the Cartridge Retainer

This faucet is a pretty straightforward thing to deal with. It's a 'cartridge' design wherein a single element does all the valving. The cartridge is supposed to just pull straight out. I ran into a bit of a snag with that that I'll get to shortly.

1) Knob Insert -- i.e. the plastic plug-button in the centre of the knob:

• Get a dull knife blade or some such thing under its edge and it pries out, giving access to the screw that fastens the knob to the cartridge stem. Here it is having just been removed.

This insert no longer fits snugly, and its decorative inner screw-concealment 'cover' is a ruin. I'll have to come up with a fix for that.

2) Screw

• It's a 10-24 x 1/2", chrome-plated truss head with a No. 2 Phillips recess. Remove it and the knob can be pulled straight off, bringing you to here.

That stainless steel band with the upward protrusion is called the 'stop tube' -- its protrusion provides the stop points for the knob's extremes of hot/cold setting rotation. (Amount of flow is governed by pulling the knob outward.)

A little further disassembly brings us to here.



The stop tube has been slid off, and a washer and retaining 'fork' have been removed. The washer serves as a backstop for the knob. The retaining fork was the last item in the way of cartridge removal.

Now is a very good time to stop and take a close look at the cartridge's stem. Note that there's a bit of a notch at the end on the top side, and there's a letter and a number etched on the lower flat. Make a note of that to guide you come reassembly. There's nothing in the faucet's construction to prevent you from installing the cartridge upside down. If you do that, the cartridge will still work, but you'll have reversed the proper hot and cold directions for the knob's operation.^[1]

Removing the Cartridge

This is where I ran into a bit of difficulty. The cartridge is supposed to just pull straight out, but this faucet's cartridge had been in place for a long time, and it didn't want to budge. See this post for a way to construct a light slide hammer from common iron pipe fittings. A light slide hammer is the ideal tool for dealing with this.

Here's the cartridge out of the faucet.

And here we are with the aerator unscrewed, and the underside cover removed.

All that's left is those two plain-slot screws holding the innards to the shell. With those two screws removed, the innards should just come away, but mineral deposits and the like around the neck of the cartridge receptacle may make removal difficult. A vinegar soak can be helpful. If you need to hammer the thing, stick a length of dowel into the cartridge well and hammer on that. Do not hammer on the end of the cartridge receptacle; you'll distort it.

Here it is fully dismantled.

Now I need to clean everything up and refinish the shell. The bore of the cartridge receptacle looks like it could stand a polishing; I'll have to come up with a harmless way to do that.

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The Cartridge Receptacle's Bore

Here's what I came up with for polishing the bore.

It's a nine inch length of 1/2" diameter dowel, with a slot cut in one end by my table saw. Stuff a small wad of fine steel wool in the slot, chuck the dowel in a portable drill and you have a bore polisher that cannot do any harm.

It's not a great photograph, but here's the best I could do to show the result.

And here's a view of the whole thing after a vinegar soak, and some steel wooling of the copper tubes. A good blow-through with compressed air ensures that nothing of the steel wool stays behind.

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The Underside Cover and the Cartridge Receptacle Retainer

Paint remover took the finish off the underside cover fairly easily. The cover is nicely chrome plated.

I'm tempted to just leave it like that, but a proper restoration should hew to factory practice, so I'll paint it.

Down in front in the above photo is the retaining plate for the cartridge receptacle. It had a poor excuse for a yellow zinc dichromate plating on it that came off when I wire-brushed it, so I'll paint that as well.

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Replacing the Cartridge

The cartridge pictured much further above is a Moen P/N 1225. (There's a similar one that's interchangeable -- P/N 1220.) I got a rather pleasant surprise when I called the local plumbing trade supply house to ask if they had one in stock. The gentleman told me they had, and when I asked the price the man said it's free! It seems that when you own a Moen faucet, you get free replacement cartridges in perpetuity.

The cartridge comes sealed in a little plastic bag. Its O-rings and seals are pre-lubricated,^[2] so there's nothing to do to it but get it correctly oriented and pushed into the receptacle. You can temporarily attach the knob to make that even easier to do. Once the cartridge is fully seated, reinstall the retaining fork and that part of the job is done with.

Having gotten this far, I wanted to be able to pressure-test the faucet, so I built this test fixture.

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SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2011

Preparing and Painting the Shell

Here's a view of the shell after several applications of paint remover.

It's a curious thing about paint remover's effect on enamelled objects like this -- there are always spots left that seem impervious to paint remover. That mystifies me. Anyway, some scraping and sanding and steel wooling is still in order.

I'll give it my usual paint job consisting of a primer coat followed by two enamel coats, all within the span of just under two hours. I get excellent results from that routine.

I'll apply the primer coat to all surfaces, inside and out, then enamel only the exterior. Then I'll set it aside in a safe place for at least a week so the paint can harden undisturbed -- that's another key to a good outcome. Spray paints may 'dry' quickly, but truly hardening is another matter. That takes days.

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Here it is ready for painting, after a couple of hours of unspeakable tedium.

There's some corrosion pitting around the perimeter of the base, and where the stem end of the cartridge receptacle emerges. I wasn't able to eliminate all of that, so this will not be a truly 'flawless' restoration. It'll do.

If you'd care to see what's supporting the thing underneath, this post reveals all.

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And finally, here it is painted.

I'm so glad that's over with. It's so easy to botch a spray-paint job, and I managed not to botch it. Off to its hardening spot it goes.

I still have to paint the underside cover. In a week or so, I can do the final reassembly.

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 14, 2012

Final Reassembly

Ok, it's as ready as it'll ever be. Here goes.

Here's a view of the innards back in place, with a bead of clear silicone sealant applied along where the lower portion of the underside cover fits on.

I like to seal that part of a faucet so water can't wick in there.

And here it is fully reassembled.

With the new cartridge in it, it has its lovely smooth feel to its operation back. And after all that, I guess it behooves me to obtain a new replacement for that yellowed, ill-fitting knob insert, if such can be had.

Anyway, it's done -- fit for installation and use.

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SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012

Addendum -- New Knob Insert

It turns out that the thing can be had -- for a price. If you go to the Home Depot and hand over the outrageous amount of $5.99 plus sales tax, you can go home with one of these.

So, here at long last is the faucet well and truly done with its new knob insert in place.

The original insert must have shrunk; it was quite a loose fit. This new one fits perfectly.

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I've neglected to mention the mounting hardware bits; those I cleaned up and enamelled. Here they all are ready for installation.

There. Done. Absolutely, positively completed.

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SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012

For Sale

I really have no use for this item. It's for sale in the store.

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Notes:

[1] Moen's literature points out that this feature is purposeful. In a situation where the hot and cold water supply lines were installed opposite their normal positions, the cartridge can be inverted so that operation at the faucet is normalized.

[2] Never lubricate the O-rings or seals of a Moen cartridge with ordinary 'plumber's grease'; they'll swell. If the internal O-rings are so greased, the cartridge's ease of operation will be ruined, and it will likely leak eventually. If the external seals are so greased, the cartridge will be rendered extremely difficult to remove.

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Resizing a Furnace Filter

My wife picked up a high-end Honeywell furnace filter at a garage sale recently for two dollars. That's not a bad price considering what the things retail for^[1].

There's just one little problem -- the filter is 20"x20"x1"^[2], and our furnace takes 16"x20"x1"^[2] filters.

Now, how hard can it be to resize one of these things? Let's see what I can do with a straightedge and a sharp utility knife.

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That went fairly well. Here's a shot of the cut off end of the filter, and of how I'm trimming the glue off the end cap that I've peeled/sliced away.

The filter is well-constructed of quite tough materials, and the manufacturer didn't scrimp on glue.

What I have in mind is to reattach the end cap with hot-melt glue. I should end up with a reasonable facsimile of a 16"x20" filter.

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That turned out not too shabby at all. Here's a close-up view of one end of the reattached cap.



So, should you come across an oversize filter, or a whole truckload of oversize filters at a really good price, snap them up -- they're not difficult to modify to fit.

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[1] I can't seem to find a price for this exact filter, but from what I've seen, the retail price of these things is outrageous.

I'll grant that they're well made of excellent materials, and I have no reason to dispute what's claimed for the things, but just how well must I be protected from every conceivable pollutant in this world to go on living in it? How did the human race ever get past cave-dwelling without Honeywell cave-fire filters to keep it healthy?

The paper wrapper that was on the filter tells me that, "This filter cleans the air of: pollen, household dust, auto emissions, mold spores, animal dander, bacteria, particles that can carry viruses [!?], smog particles." Or, to put it another way, possibly, "Be afraid! Spend lots of money on our filters and we'll protect you.

[2] The nominal dimensions of these filters are just that -- nominal; they're all made slightly undersize so they'll fit easily in their racks.

The Honeywell unit states actual dimensions of 19 5/8"x19 5/8"x13/16". The mesh filter I have is similarly undersize, though it doesn't state actual dimensions; it just gives a metric equivalent of its nominal dimensions (406mm x 508mm x 25mm).

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Noma Room Heater Model APH209W

The heater pictured below was a roadside find. It's remarkably clean, and appears to be in working order. Someone must have decided they had one heater too many, I suppose. I'll open it up for an inspection and a compressed air dust blow-out. 'Can't hurt to have a spare heater on hand.

The two feet are each attached by an M4x16mm wing screw. Removing the feet reveals a couple of truss head sheet metal screws that secure the end caps.

Then there's an M4 machine screw in each end cap's handle recess. The one at the control panel end is quite long (22mm). That's so the end of the screw reaches in to nudge the control panel's housing over as far to the right as it's supposed to sit.

The screw heads are all No. 2 Phillips recess. I quite like how this thing is constructed -- no concealed mystery clips or fastenings that you need x-ray vision to figure out. The end caps can just be pulled straight off once the screws are out.

Remove nine truss head sheet metal screws to free the rear cover, then there's a tabs/slots affair at the rear edge of the control panel. Slide the control panel to the left a bit and you can free the rear cover from the control panel's tabs.

And there we are; the unit is fully opened up. You can see in the above shot the tabs/slots I mentioned earlier.

I'll blow out what dust there is, and straighten a bent loop I see in one of the heating element's coils. The fan spins fine.

It's unlikely that you could get parts for one of these heaters. (Replacing any electrical component would necessitate cutting off 'top hat' crimp connectors and replacing them with wire nuts.) I think the idea is that if the heater fails, you toss it in the landfill and go buy a new one. That way, the poor wretches in the factory in China will have steady work. (Can you imagine assembling these things all day long every day, with a supervisor eying your 'numbers'? I'd last part of one shift before I went postal with a vengeance.)

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Anyway, it's all done and back together. The two feet fit poorly. It never ceases to amaze me what shabby dimension control some mass-produced goods can exhibit. I can do better in my basement workshop.

This heater has a feature I haven't seen before on a portable electric space heater -- the fan has a separate on/off switch.

It appears you have the option of operating the unit as a silent convection heater, or as a fan-forced heater. That's a new one on me.

I'll give it a thorough trial the next time I have need of a heater, and make certain that it exhibits no bad behaviour that would account for it having been left out by the road.

Something to be mindful of on high current appliances like this heater is the molded plug right where the line cord joins it. It's normal for them to warm up there a little while operating, but if they run noticeably hot, something's wrong. Either strands of wire have broken inside the cord from flexing, or the spot-welds where the wires join the plug's prongs were poorly done. Whatever the case, no good will come of ignoring it. If the rest of the line cord is ok, cut the plug off and replace it with a screw-terminal type of plug. And then continue to be mindful of that area, and retighten the screws periodically. A 1,500 watt appliance draws a lot of current, and it needs sound, low-resistance connections to draw it through.

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Zeroing a Micrometer

Zeroing a micrometer is a pretty straightforward job but, as with everything, there are a few little wrinkles to it that the orthodox literature on the subject is unlikely to tell you about. I'll share what I've leaned about it here.

First, here's a simple illustration just for the sake of keeping our terminology straight. (Ignore the "0.462 cm" 'dimension'. That has no relevance to anything here. This was the best illustration I could find that had the correct terms on it.)

You'll often see the 'sleeve' incorrectly identified as the 'barrel'. That's misleading. The micrometer's barrel is underneath the sleeve. The barrel is rigidly attached to the frame, and has in it the female screw thread that the spindle/thimble assembly runs in.

The sleeve, as its name implies, is merely a scale-bearing covering for the barrel. And that's the key to the zeroing adjustment; the sleeve can be forced to rotate in either direction over the barrel. That's how you get the sleeve's baseline to align with the thimble's 'zero' when the spindle is fully closed down onto the anvil.

Here's a photograph of a micrometer in need of zeroing; it's off by almost a full hundredth of a millimetre.

Down in front is the little spanner that came with the micrometer for zeroing it. On the back side of the sleeve there's a hole for the spanner's hook to engage with.

In this case, I'll need to turn the sleeve so the baseline moves upward to align with the thimble's zero. What can complicate the procedure a bit is that the sleeve's friction fit may exhibit something of a 'stick/slip' characteristic -- apply enough torque to get the sleeve to rotate, and then it may 'jump' too far, spoiling the adjustment attempt. A couple of things can be done to get around that.

First off, clamp the micrometer in a vise with some stiff cardboard in place to protect the frame from being marred by the vise jaws -- a rigidly secured micrometer is much easier to deal with than one held in one's hand. The following photo shows the arrangement, along with a method for ensuring that the faces of the anvil and spindle are perfectly clean and free of debris.

A fresh cigarette paper is probably the cleanest, most lint-free thing in the known universe. Slide one between the anvil and spindle faces before proceeding, and you'll be assured a correct zeroing. (And a follow-up blast of compressed air doesn't hurt, either.)

The little adjustment spanner is awfully short; lengthen it by clamping on a small set of Vise-Grips.

The greater effective length lent to the spanner by doing this makes it much easier to get the adjustment dead on at your first go.

And here we are.

A hassle-free, perfect zeroing job.

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