No more water torture

Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Well, for the past long long while we've had a drip in the faucet in the tub.  I'd finally had enough of it keeping me up at night, so last Monday, on my day off, I tried to tackle the leak. I know enough DIY plumbing that I knew I needed to remove the stem of each knob and replace the washer at the back of the stem.  Thing was, when I took the knobs off, and removed a few more bits, I didn't see the sort of stem I expected to see. Simply, there wasn't a nut in the middle of the stem to turn the stem out.  So I put it all back together and went to see Coraline in 3D.

Today, I thought I'd tackle it again since I had half a day of good daylight to see in the bathroom.  After we all went to the bathroom for the last time and I turned off the water, I pulled the knobs off again and got to where I was on Monday.  I got a little braver and scraped some stuff off around the pipe of one knob, and even got in from behind through the wall behind the fridge in the kitchen (there was already a hatch cut into the wall to see the plumbing).  Still stumped, I took some pictures and printed them off and took them to my Ace Hardware around the corner.

Joe, the old guy at Ace took a look at the pictures, listened to what I thought I was seeing, then had a pretty good idea of what was going on.  Funny thing was he'd never seen a faucet/knob quite like I was describing, and what the pictures were showing.  He said, "You know what I'd do if I was you?" To which I replied, "Call a plumber?" He laughed, said no, I didn't need a plumber and he was confident I could tackle this.  He explained to me why he thought I wasn't seeing the sort of thing I expected, and told me exactly what to do to get it off.  I ran back home, did exactly as he said, and there it was, suddenly I had a knob stem in my hand.  It looked and operated exactly as he said it would, and I ran back to Ace (thankfully it's only 2 minutes away) and showed him what I had.  He got me set up with some washers and plumber's grease (to make taking out the 54-year old stems easier the next time I have to), and I was back home in 10 minutes and taking care of the second knob.  In they went, on went the water, and voila! no drip!

Hmm, no, I don't have a picture of the finished product, and I'm too lazy right now to run up and take one.  It just looks like a tub now, but with no drip.