g'day everyone um it's maintenance time again on the old um brent oil system and um in case you're wondering yes it's brass and yes it's very old it's um probably getting on to 60 years old yeah 60 plus years old is about the approximate age and this this one was uninstalled about 30 years ago um or even more than 30 years ago it could could have even been 30 40 years ago um and it was all then so that's gives you a very good idea of how this thing is now flush valve seal now what the hell is a flash valve well we'll get to that if you're not really into um infrastructure like i am you you may not know what a flash valve seal is i gather that a lot of people that are watching this video probably will but just in case you don't know i'm going to run through it anyway how do you know it's leaking well there are two ways of determining that the first um way if it's leaking quite a bit is going to be to use your eyes and that's what we're going to do at the moment stupid camera strap getting in the damn way all the time you can see it already in the camera you can very slightly hear the fill valve on the cistern not exactly quite shutting off see the ripples on the surface of the water if it'll focus yep you can see it running down the back focusing at that distance so you can see the rebels on the surface of the water that means the flush valve seal's gone this thing by the way has a separate overflow which is a garden hose at the bottom that's just going outside now this is only temporary and so is the flush pipe um because i've got a copper one i've got 38 point written there somewhere um 38.10 millimeter or one and a half inch copper pipe that i'm going to make for the flush pipe that's a chrome 1.5 inch trap nut now if you order if you'll get one of these systems but that bit will be missing and they're going to tell you you can't get the bits which is true you can't but that's for a copper trap and it's a one and a half inch trap nut you can order that as a spare part from reese don't ask me what the um order code is but you can do it if they tell you you can't tell them they're wrong um this was ordered through vanilla race and it came with the seal um came actually a number of seals so it's got it's got a couple of seals but that's um not dwv that is to say don't get confused by the pvc pipe there that pvc pipe is actually the same external diameter as the old one and a half inch copper pipe because this is a very old system this flush pipe came from a later print that's why it's pvc but it doesn't match a pvc pipe size so you cannot buy pvc pipe in that size pressure or whatever you can't get it so you either have to use one of these old flash pipes which they don't make anymore or the best ways to get copper one and a half inch it'd go really well with this system once it's actually polished anyway so um if your fill valve seal or ball valve seal is leaking slightly it could also do this but in this case it's definitely the flush valve because if it overflows it's going to go out that to the ground now what i'm going to do is run a three-quarter inch copper pipe that's going to be basically it's going to go to a um nipple that's been braised into the um flush pipe the copper flush pipe so pretty much as per the diagram there that's where it's going to run it's going to go down here down there and it's going to actually use a nut like a flare nut like that but three quarter inch and it's going to go to a nipple that's been brazed onto that flash pipe i've gotten around to doing it yet but i will so there's another way of determining whether your flush valve seals leaking you first you want to take the lid off the cistern and make sure it's not overflowing into your flash pipe if it's a more modern system it will have an integral overflow with the with the flashlight and if the water level is correct and yeah your fill valve's not naked um and you know just use your eyes can you see it leaking can you see ripples on the sides of the water yes no well yes it's leaking definitely if no and you still think it's leaking go grab some food dye like red food dye or something and um if it's blue well it's not really going to help anyway because the blue block things in the system the water in there will be blue anyway so grab yourself some food dye different color to what the water is take your blue block out really you should do that but if you can't be bothered grab some red food dye go drop some in the toilet system and don't flush it just leave it and just watch what happens if it's leaking you'll see it appear in the water down there so anyway we've determined it's leaking the first thing to do is to locate your um build valve shut off tap now you won't have a cool looking um aga slash um water certified um stop tap like this which is stainless steel with uh nylon cups so it's never gonna never unfail you'll probably have a little girl tap which is gonna be a chrome thing somewhere so shut off your you know shut off your real man fill valve um stop tap or your little girl chrome one um grab yourself one of these this is actually made of natural rubber it's not a neoprene one the one in there is a neoprene one and it didn't really seem to last that well i don't know why but i i grabbed one of these from reece it was just under ten dollars so don't discount a little leak you would be surprised how much water that can actually waste and don't need to remove that all the way there's nothing wrong with the one and a half inch flash pipe it in no way impairs the system's ability to flush if you want tips on recoiling these old systems feel free to ask if you need to find one let's just let the um let the top cover hang now just in case you don't know how these systems work it's very simple really counterweight a flash valve at the bottom when you push the button see how that push rod pushes on that now that when it goes over center back will hold the flush valve off its seat and the cup down there which is full of water um water in water weighs nothing so there's no weight difference if there's water um in water if you know what i mean now there's probably a correct term for this i'm not going to go on wikipedia if you want to feel free please don't post it as a comment because i don't really care what the term is um unless you really have to of course so anyway water in water equals nothing it's like air in air equals nothing air compared to air water compared to water air the weight of air compared to a vacuum obviously would would weigh something because a vacuum doesn't have any weight to it whereas air does same with water water um weight compared to water equals nothing so if you submerge a cup in water like a pool of water and you've tied a string to the cup you're only going to get the cup weight pull that cup and string and spring balance out of the water and suddenly the water's weight suddenly uh matters so look on the the theory is sound you know google it for the exact wording scientific whatever so anyway when you push that button and the water level drops the weight of the water in that tub pulls the flush valve down that's how they work but get all the water out of there don't lose the brass pin and the reason is because you can't use a steel one it's got to be copper or brass just a bit of grease in there it's the wrong type of grease exactly my dear i don't really give a so pull the little bugger out that's all we got that's the cup arrangement just to give you an idea of the size that's about i guess it's about three fingers high now why is it working well see the pock marks there pock marks on the surface of that seal that's why it's leaking now why did it happen well either the rubber is degraded or there's something wrong with the seat now so i put that on the floor what you want to do just feel around the seat and make sure it's smooth and free of any burrs this one's pretty good so i'd say the rub is just degraded there's no visual there's no visual burrs or anything or nicks in that seat so i'm just going to go ahead and replace it with a new seal so grab a torch look in there if you have to drain the water out yeah definitely can't see anything in there so don't lose the little cup washer on that countersunk screw because they're not actually that easy to get so well you can get them i mean a bolt shop or whatever there but yeah keep it original so this is this this is the difference between these two seals now this is what they would have been fitted with originally this is what i fitted with because it's what i could get and it was around and i thought it might last a bit better than the original natural rub one but obviously not so pull out the um pin get rid of that copper spacer or brass whatever it is just unscrew it pretty much pull it off whatever now it's all tight no nothing so i'm going to flex that out like that now don't damage it too much in the center there because it won't seal so the cut side does not go down yeah you just got to screw it on there until it's sitting it's got to sit all the way down on the on the top of that uh it's got to sit down further than that but i don't want it sitting down too far because it's it's got to sit up off the bottom of that cup because otherwise you don't want sitting down like that it's not far from perfect don't tear the middle of it up too much by screwing it down too hard and whatnot really they're a one-way trip once you put them on they're not supposed to come off again because otherwise yeah they don't they'll the middle will tear out too much so you don't need rubber grease or anything but so that's all the way down see it's there's no thread sticking out that's where you want it to be now it's nice and mobile it has to be you can't if you put the cup side down it won't seal because if it's got no give in it no springiness it won't take up for the imperfections in the flush valve seat so that's correctly fitted now you put your spacer back on put your little copper brass or whatever it is um pin back through the hole that's correctly fitted remember on this system it has to be mobile yeah it can't be it can't be um hard up against the um can't be hard up against that bit of um copper so it's got to be nice and free like that so it's a bit of a pain getting it back in but sleep it back over there like that as you missed it put your little brass pin back through it that's it you really want to make sure that that valve zoom in a bit one-handed camera man cameraman you really want to make sure that that sits pretty much dead center of that valve now this one isn't exactly right so i might have to piss around with that top bit a bit but it'll seal like it's it's not gone it's not failed because of that the rubber seals just failed so put the tap back on old school alarm ball valve really big old ball valve actually by the top caps there a little bit of water let's clean you up it's streaky sure it's not very clean there you go so it doesn't fill up with much water um and let's deliver it oh what all you do to adjust the float level is bend the float arm so it's a copper float so that's yeah really good quality remember if you handle that lead weight too much um it's lead so it will give you lead poisoning if you don't wash your hands so if you're handling lead wash your hands don't ignore it don't don't just be blase about it you know it's old because are certified by the mmvw lead seal on the back of it focus focus there you go mm-bbw metropolitan melbourne board of works of course everything's bloody privatised now but i will just sit there like that now is it leaking well and you're going to get some crap from the old flush valve seal coming down and that's what's in the inside of that bowl there in the back of that bowl that's just the rubber from the from the neoprene so dead calm water no ripples or anything you can confirm it with your food dye if you like providing you've already gotten rid of the food divers and so see an old bloody camera still no ripples on the surface of that water so that will save you money and um it's good for everybody in in your area because it saves water you don't want to be pissing bloody drinking water down the toilet um just because now for nine dollars i'm going to save myself packets on water like really you do you save so much money um when you replace the flush valve seal replace the ball valve seal at the same time i'm not going to run through it undo the cap i will run through it but not today you might be running a little bit but anyway that's how you maintain a 60 year old brass toilet system they're all pretty much identical there were some variants um there was the costco vacuumatic um costco or cos i think it was costco from memory don't screw those screws down too hard because you'll distort the nice brass cover um you can polish these right up so that's it it's fixed and don't forget when you're working on stuff in your house after you make a mess clean it up because no one likes a dirty toilet and if you do a job and um you haven't fixed it then it's yes i know the floor sucks but this floor's been replaced so i don't give a all right bye