Moen Shower balancing spool

[Mcwatson]

i think I need to replace or clean the shower balancing spool on my Moen shower. I only get hot water. I read an earlier thread that helped me identify this, my question is do I need to turn off the main water line to my house before I do this?

 

[Terry]

You need to turn off water to the home if you are removing the balancing spool or the cartridge from a shower faucet. Otherwise you're going to have a huge flood in the home.

There are some showers that come with integral stops, which is rare in homes, but you won't see if you have those until you remove the faceplate of the faucet. Assume you don't have those and turn off the water to the home.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Mcwatson]

I can not get the shower handle off. The Allen bolt is stripped. I bought a kit to remove stripped hex bolts, but that didn’t work. Any advise on getting the handle off another way?

 

[Terry]

If the Allen screw is stripped, then you may need to drill it out.
The Allen for Moen is a SAE size, not metric. I have to carry both because product like Grohe from Germany needs metric.

 

[Mcwatson]

Drilled off. Neck broke. Trying to get cartridge out. How can I be sure it’s in water off position? May need to turn water line on, this is going to be a long project and parts need to be ordered.

 

[Terry]

How about a picture 800 pixels or less of what you are working on?
Moen makes three valves.

 

[Mcwatson]

Broke down and called a plumber....didn’t want to damage pipe chiseling out the old cartridge shell.