Jack1670
New Member
Hello! I was searching the web for some help and ran across this forum. I hope in the future to return the favor as I have some amateur plumbing experiences myself which have always been unique. I hope someone can tell me that I'm a moron and missed something simple in this thread.
I have a large 15 year old American Standard jetted tub in the master bath. It appeared to be working perfectly until my daughter was turning the air bubble control, heard something drop behind the tub and found she pulled the whole body of the control valve out. All 3 of the control valves were this way, so they might have come loose that night or years ago, we have no idea. We discovered that if we pulled on it, the whole thing came off. It appears the valve control got stuck and when we turned the valve we were actually turning and loosening the nut on the back side of the assembly. In other words- the whole assembly would turn when you moved the knob so the rear nut worked its way loose and fell off.
I have 1 access door to the tub at the faucet valve area (area under the TV on the right in the 1st pic) and found a retaining nut on the back side of the control fell out. I was able to find the sealing washer and nut for the controller near the water valves and was successful in reinstalling it, but the other 2 controllers are at the far end of the tub and there is no access to them. I can see the end nut sitting way out in the distance that fell off for one of them, but it's impossible to reach.
So how hosed am I on the 2 that are impossible to reach? Do I have to tear apart the tile work to get to them or is there a replacement kit or some trick to this that I am missing? PLEASE tell me that I am a moron and I missed a very simple solution here, because I think I'm going to have to start tearing the tile out from around this thing. I really don't want to do this...
I took a few pictures to help with the explanation. 1 is of the tub itself if this POS looks familiar to anyone, the next pic is of the air bubble controller body pulling out because the end nut fell out of the back, the last pic is of the back side of the only controller I was able to access and get a pic of. It was a pretty good stretch to get the camera in there for that pic, so I hope you can see what I am talking about. Note the nut and sealing washer on the back. Can't install them without access to the back from what I can see so the other 2 are impossible to reach.
Sorry for the long post and thanks very much in advance for any help.
Jack
I have a large 15 year old American Standard jetted tub in the master bath. It appeared to be working perfectly until my daughter was turning the air bubble control, heard something drop behind the tub and found she pulled the whole body of the control valve out. All 3 of the control valves were this way, so they might have come loose that night or years ago, we have no idea. We discovered that if we pulled on it, the whole thing came off. It appears the valve control got stuck and when we turned the valve we were actually turning and loosening the nut on the back side of the assembly. In other words- the whole assembly would turn when you moved the knob so the rear nut worked its way loose and fell off.
I have 1 access door to the tub at the faucet valve area (area under the TV on the right in the 1st pic) and found a retaining nut on the back side of the control fell out. I was able to find the sealing washer and nut for the controller near the water valves and was successful in reinstalling it, but the other 2 controllers are at the far end of the tub and there is no access to them. I can see the end nut sitting way out in the distance that fell off for one of them, but it's impossible to reach.
So how hosed am I on the 2 that are impossible to reach? Do I have to tear apart the tile work to get to them or is there a replacement kit or some trick to this that I am missing? PLEASE tell me that I am a moron and I missed a very simple solution here, because I think I'm going to have to start tearing the tile out from around this thing. I really don't want to do this...
I took a few pictures to help with the explanation. 1 is of the tub itself if this POS looks familiar to anyone, the next pic is of the air bubble controller body pulling out because the end nut fell out of the back, the last pic is of the back side of the only controller I was able to access and get a pic of. It was a pretty good stretch to get the camera in there for that pic, so I hope you can see what I am talking about. Note the nut and sealing washer on the back. Can't install them without access to the back from what I can see so the other 2 are impossible to reach.
Sorry for the long post and thanks very much in advance for any help.
Jack