I had previously posted about a stuck diverter stem valve (http://www.plbg.com/forum/read.php?1,553323). I went ahead and found the matching diverter stem valve but I'm still having problems.

Short history: about 2 months ago there was a constant drip coming from shower. It was tracked to cold water side so I replaced the cold water stem valve and the drip stopped. Also, there has always been water coming out of tub when diverter is set to shower since we bought this house.

Before I went ahead and tried to replace the diverter stem valve (after replacing cold stem valve but not right away), I was sporadically experiencing the following: I would be filling the tub with the right balance of hot and cold and suddenly the cold would drop out leaving nothing but hot (I confirmed it wasn't because another source in the house was using cold water as this happened frequently). Also if I turned cold on all the way, then turned on hot, then turned off hot, there would often be only a very little cold coming out or I could actually see it changing flow rates until it wasn't coming out at all. If I turned the cold to off and turned it back on it would usually turn back on but at least once it got to a point that I could turn the cold on and off repeatedly and no water would come out.

I was hoping that replacing the diverter stem valve would address both the cold water dropping out and the tub leaking while the shower was running, but neither problem has been addressed

Has anyone seen this type of thing before? The diverter valve handle and escutcheon were broken when I took it off... Is it possible that the diverter stem in there was not correct and I bought a match to the wrong one?

Thanks in advance.
Gregg

Possible, but a loose washer on the cold stem that you replaced would be more likely. Take it back apart and see if it is working its way off. If the stem was the wrong length then it generally doesn't turn on, or turn off at all. I suspect some back pressure is making the washer wobble and move around.

Thanks KCRoto.

I finally got around to taking the cold stem valve off again and the screw holding the washer in place was indeed almost entirely unscrewed. It definitely wasn't that way when I put it in. So I think that is under control now.

To my second point in the original post... I had replaced the diverter valve because the tub had significant amounts of water coming out of it when the shower setting was selected and that is still the case with the new diverter. Also, the water pressure feels a little lower than before. Any other reasons for the tub to be "leaking" water while the shower is selected besides a faulty diverter valve?

Thanks,
Gregg