Bathtub faucet handle sticking up

[Jordan Deeney]

My house is 10 years old. I have a hot water faucet handle on our bathtub that is sticking up from the edge of the bathtub. I was able to to rotate and screw in the pvc water line going into the handle, from underneath. But I could only get the gap to this point. I removed the handle only to see this, which is where I am stuck.

Goal is just to get the handle down so it is flush with the bathtub.

Thank you for your thoughts!

 

[hj]

Cannot answer your question, because we do not know WHY it is up in the air, (there could be several reasons, and each has its own cure).

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jordan Deeney]

Cannot answer your question, because we do not know WHY it is up in the air, (there could be several reasons, and each has its own cure).

Could you list a couple of the reasons so I can investigate? Seemed rather simple since I was able to just screw in the water line to the handle, but can't figure out how to disassemble it so I can get it all the way down.

 

[hj]

The "flange" is getting stuck by a bad thread on the valve body. The valve body is too high through the tub. These are the two most likely causes.