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Author:
JackOfAllTraids (CA)
FYI: If you are trying to repair your faucet don't bother reading on. My solution is for removal and replacement.
It took me a few tries to solve this and was surprised that this idea worked, and how cheep it was. They say a picture is worth 1000 words but - even though I figured out how to remove the faucet, I gave up trying to figure out how to post photos to this site. So use your imagination and here goes:
I went to my neighborhood big box home improvement store and purchased every faucet removal gadget they had. The one that worked was a set of cheep wrenches that looked like a set of 5 pipes connected by a giant safety pin. Each pipe was a bit larger than the one next to it and The pipes were machined so that the ends of each one formed a kind of "poor man's" socket wrench with two sizes per pipe. Included on the giant safety pin was a short steel bar that you put through a whole in the pipe like a right angle lever. This tool looked so dumb and cheep that I wouldn't have bought it except that I was desperate after spending two evenings under the sink fumbling with the rusty hardware holding the old faucet in place.
Here's how to use it: First, I cut all the lines leading to the faucet really close to the connecting nut. If you have braided steel tubes you are on your own, I had copper tubes leading down far enough that I could cut them short.
Then, and here is where you have to imagine this, I connected the tube wrenches together end to end to form a long make-shift socket wrench. The faucet nut was 7/16th and one of the cheep wrenches in the set was 7/16ths. I didn't use all five wrenches in the set, only three of them and I chose them based on the fact that they fit more or less snugly into each other to form the longer tool.
Now, remember that steel lever that came with the set. Well, you won't need it. I mention it because there are convenient holes drilled into each end of each wrench for this cross bar. I ran bolts through these holes to keep the wrenches from separating. Then I attached a real socket wrench at the bottom of this contraption and crawled back under the sink. I first tried to loosen it with my ratchet but that sucker was on there to stay. I crawled back out and went for my cordless impact driver and then hit it full blast while my wife hung on to the faucet to keep it from spinning into the kitchen window. The nut fought me all the way. I recommend both safety glasses and ear protection (your wife may scream at you - while crud falls on your face).
Good luck.
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Author:
North Carolina Plumber (NC)
We call them cowbell sockets, due to the sound they make when they clank together.
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Author:
packy (MA)
telescoping cowbells..
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Author:
bernabeu (SC)
O - M - G
The OP reinvented the basin wrench
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"Measure Twice & Cut Once" - Retired U.A. Local 1 & 638
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Author:
george 7941 (Canada)
7/16 hex? That doesn't sound right. Must have been a much larger size.
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Author:
hj (AZ)
I have never seen a set with a 7/16 socket, however.
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