“I’ve replaced several of these in my lifetime, and it isn’t hard to do.”

Doubtless you’ve heard the phrase, “famous last words”?

This photo didn’t make it into “Never Say Never”, but it shows how dedicated my trusty assistant was to my most recent foray into the world of home plumbing. After finishing the aforementioned “under-the-bathroom-sink” project with some level of success, I thought I might as well install one more thing. After all, I was on a roll, right?

If you look at the instructions for how to replace a Fluidmaster fill valve, you will see it’s pretty straightforward. You turn off the water to the toilet, flush the toilet to remove the water in the tank, and then…

. . .disconnect the water line from the fill valve. What could be simpler? Once I had completed the first steps, I took a look at the water line under the tank.

Okay, I thought. I know what to do. Just let me get out my tools!

At this point, I couldn’t take pictures and work at the same time. But it didn’t look like it would be too hard. Until it was.

Regardless of what I did, or what tools I used, I could not get the plastic nut to come off. I Googled it, and the sheer number of responses that came up should tell you something.

Not wanting to give up but not wanting to show my face at Fresno Ag Hardware again so soon after the P-trap adventure, I went to Walmart for more supplies. I wanted to get a new can of WD-40, which is purported to eat away at plastic, but it was all locked up in a glass case, and I didn’t want to mess with finding someone to help me. So, I was forced to eke out what I could from the can I already had, which I’m pretty sure came from my parents’ house and was probably purchased in 1971.

When your WD-40 needs WD-40.

The general consensus online seemed to be that if you couldn’t get the plastic nut loose, you should just get a hacksaw and cut through the fill valve, between the nut and the tank, and it should come right off. Then you would have to replace the entire water line, but they are cheap, and it would be worth it. The nice men on YouTube have never lied to me yet, but there’s always a first time. No matter what I did, even with my new “mini hacksaw” from Walmart, I could not saw through it. Truth in blogging: My dad’s hacksaw, which had worked on the PVC pipes under the sink, was too big for this tight area and the blade fell off when I tried to use it for this purpose.

Another suggestion was that you could saw through the nut itself, and eventually you could break it off that way. After much more effort than what I had expected, I was able to saw into the nut until it broke. I was so happy and was ready to continue with the job!

But, there was another nut underneath it! And it was stuck even tighter than the first one. Who does this stuff? The picture you’re looking at here is from after I had fought with it enough to have loosened the whole thing about a quarter of an inch. On top of that, the fill valve just kept turning with the nut, even when I tried to steady it from above.

It was at around this point that I realized why the last time I had replaced a fill valve it had been so easy. I had followed this advice, where you only take off the top portion of the valve and leave the bottom part attached to the water line. It only works if you use the same fill valve model, but now that I had started the process it was too late to go back.

The nut was loose enough to leak, but not loose enough to take off. Plus, it was stuck so I couldn’t tighten it back up again. You can see where I had tried to cut the nut with the hacksaw, also to no avail. To say I worked on this for hours is no understatement.

I even cut my finger when the screwdriver I was holding on the nut slipped as I was hitting it with a rubber mallet. Note to self: Probably should have had the gloves on.

I might mention here that this “simple” project took about three days to complete. Needless to say, I would never have attempted it if I hadn’t had two bathrooms. At one point I was so discouraged that I went online and ordered myself the coffee cup pictured above. I had seen it on Pinterest, and I think it was being advertised as a Father’s Day gift, but hey. Online shopping can sometimes cheer you up.

On the morning of Day 3, I was ready to give up. I made coffee (random photo for illustration purposes) and trudged over to my recliner for “a little talk with Jesus”. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to do it myself. Maybe this was a dumb idea. Maybe I should call Carlos and ask him to come over and finish it for me. Or maybe I needed this challenge to give myself something to focus on. Maybe I was just being motivated by pride, since I knew I’d be proud of myself (hopefully in the right way) if I managed to finish the job. And last but not least, “Lord, I know you could reach down and make that come off, right now, not that I’m asking you to, but I know you could.” After a bit more soul searching and the prospect of a really good blog post ahead, I decided to give it one more try.

I finished my coffee and went back to pick up my screwdriver and mallet. I stuck the screwdriver into the crack I’d managed to make in the nut the night before. I hammered it a few more times, and then, suddenly the entire thing broke off, as if it were the easiest thing in the world! I was overjoyed! The fill valve pulled right out. Now we were getting somewhere!

I’m not going to preach to anyone, but you tell me: Does God care about even our smallest problems?

The rest was relatively easy. I knew the water line I’d bought was longer than the original, but that was okay. After a few adjustments, everything was working fine, with no leaks. Who knew that just flushing a toilet could make anyone so happy? Note to self: Do not do this again!