Toilet repairs anyone?

Repairs seem to be a common theme these days. While visiting my parent's place, I discovered that their toilet was leaking, actually more like splashing, water out from the top assembly while the toilet was refilling the tank.

My mom had an ingenious, temporary solution made of aluminum foil to create a shield to keep the water in the tank. While we could certainly live with this makeshift solution, I wanted to accommodate my parents with a real fix. Besides, the sight of the aluminum foil protruding from the top of the toilet ruins the decor of the bathroom. :)

Having never repaired anything in a toilet, I commenced twisting and pulling anything that looked like it would come off. At first try, I had no luck and was afraid I would crack something. See the picture below. I noticed that little red tab finally!!! What are tabs used for normally? Hmm... to keep something in place!!!



Slid it up and out... twisted the blue cap again and it budged slowly. NOTE: Before doing all this, it's a good idea to turn off the water supply so you don't get sprayed.

The plunger seemed fine but the o-ring was old and hard. It had lost its elasticity after many years of service and needed to be replaced. I strolled over to Home Depot, assuming that they carried everything and anything under the sun, just to be met with disappointment. They didn't carry whatever brand was in my parent's toilet.

I "could" have replaced the entire inside assembly ($40-$60) but that just seemed wrong. It's like replacing a completely functional car just because one of the tires went bad. Besides, my mom's aluminum foil was doing a fine job at curtailing the drizzling water.

I decided to take a closer look at this "top" assembly for any mention of a brand name or model number. 1B1 Master Mark III? Is that a model number or a brand? *confused*

Some searches on Google landed me on a couple of sites (www.plumbingsupply.com , www.homefixitparts.com). It appears that this part isn't common enough to be sold at your local store. I ventured over to http://www.homefixitparts.com and found a few options. I settled for the plunger/o-ring kit shown below (image from homefixitparts.com).



At this moment, I'm awaiting the delivery of the repair kit. I'll post back when I have attempted the repair.

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Apparently, there are others who had similar issues with this very brand of flush assemblies.

One that needed some cleaning:
http://www.macslab.com/charlies/BallcockRepair.html

Most suggestions all point to replacing the entire assembly:
Yahoo Answers