In every epic tale of good over evil, David vs. Goliath, Sith Lord vs. Jedi, the Good Guy usually triumphs. My most recent battle luckily ended with me slaying my Goliath. No, it wasn’t a one eyed monster come to take my children or even an intruder in my house. It was a simple, brass bolt that kept the tank on the toilet. As you can see from the photo though, it wasn’t quite brass any more (it was more a green sludgy color…).

What should have been a simple toilet repair (I was changing out the plunger thingy that keeps the water in the tank and the ball thingy that opens the water line to fill back up the tank) turned in to a nightmare that took almost three hours to complete. The job should have taken under an hour from start to finish and if all three bolts had come off like the first two, would have been done in under 30 minutes.

I’ve done it before, its simple. Turn off the water to the tank, flush the toilet to mostly drain the tank, disconnect the water line from the tank (have plenty of towels, bucket, sponge… on hand), remove brass bolts and remove the tank from the toilet. Replace hardware inside tank, place tank back on toilet, put *new* brass bolts in place and tighten down (not so tight as to crack the porcelain). Reconnect water line according to type and turn water back on. BAM! Providing I put everything on in the correct order, no leaks, quiet toilet (before it was leaking like a sieve and running constantly!).

That was not the case last night. Apparently, the rubber gasket around one bolt had a crack, split, defect or something and it was allowing water to slowly (ever so slowly) to leak on to the bolt. The nut was rusted tight. The slot for the screwdriver was corrodid beyond belief. I sat there for close to an hour with a hacksaw blade (wrapped in a hand towel because I couldn’t use the actual saw…) sawing away at the bolt between the tank and the bowl. Finally after much rocking, sawing, cursing, swearing and general frustration, I was able to break the bolt in half and I found the green slimy mess. After that, it was cake!

Maybe next time I’ll call the Colonel!