This faucet was a problem from the start…
when I took the first long trip in the RV I noticed this faucet would occasionally drip. And I’d have to bang the nob several times to get it to stop. And then I noticed that it would drip worse if the RV parks water supply pressure was higher than around 50 psi. I’d usually not worry about the pressure unless it was over 60 but with this faucet, I began to use my pressure reducer more often. Or if I couldn’t be bothered with that, or if the parks facilities weren’t conducive to attaching a pressure reducer, what I’d do is just leave the shore water off entirely and I’d use the onboard water supply and pump system…that pressure is always between 42 and 45 psi. So no drip from this faucet.
Over those first several months on into 2 years, I’d have to mess with this faucet occasionally. Take it apart, clean all the parts, put it back together with Vaseline all over the rubber parts, all in an effort to stop it from dripping. When I got to Forest City in 2018 though, I bought a seal kit from Lichtsinn RV and installed that. Didn’t seem to help much though over the long term. Still got the occasional dripping. Funny, I thought.
Then here just recently, it was dripping and just would not stop. Even with using my onboard pump with it’s lower pressure, even after a cleaning and Vaseline treatment. Crap. I can’t have a drip because I’ve got holding tanks and I want to empty them at MY leisure not because they fill too quickly because of drips. But I like the color of this faucet and it’s hard to find gold color faucets right now.
So I tore the faucet apart for the umpteenth time. Everything in there looked fine. Note that the seal kit I got and installed a couple years ago had those bottom seals, springs, inserts, and then the two ‘O’ rings you can see on a couple parts in this picture.
I added some new Vaseline to the seals and ‘O’ rings but even that didn’t help this time. So I pulled it apart again, than just sat in my recliner and thought about it. Hmm. IF it’s a seal problem, and IF the seals are in good condition, which they are, then perhaps it’s because there’s not a tight enough seal somewhere else? There are two springs with rubber seals that are suppose to add tension to things and they’re pretty new, but still, maybe they aren’t pushing hard enough? OR maybe something’s not pressing down hard enough on them! So I started nosing around and finally came to the conclusion that there could be a missing ‘O’ ring here on this part, so I added one. This is the part the brass screw on cap presses down on, which makes the seals work I thought:
You might notice that there wasn’t one on that piece in the upper photo. That’s how I’d found the assembly years ago. But now with my brain storm I figured adding one on this piece couldn’t hurt…it’s the piece that the brass screw on ring presses on to hold everything you see here inside the faucet body.
Anyway, I grabbed my spare ‘O’ ring box (from Harbor Freight – $2, bought it several years ago), found a 1″ ring, and it fit exactly on this part, as shown in the picture.
I am not sure if it has been missing all these years or if I lost it last time I opened the faucet, or if I just couldn’t or didn’t get enough turns on the brass ring but remember, it has occasionally dripped even from day one of my ownership. I think they just forgot or never had it on there from the factory. And the PO and I had to work around it’s dripping all these years. Like I said, it would only occasionally drip, not constantly like it was doing this time.
Well, all’s well that end’s well and with that ‘O’ ring it no longer drips at all. Even with high pressure. So I’m happy.
There’s something else you may have noticed in the top picture, that’s the ‘blue’ color inside the crystal handle? That’s a Zip tie I wrapped around the square receiver inside because I’d broken the crystal before and it had a crack that started there. Probably because of all the banging I’d done on it force trying to get it to stop dripping. The Zip tie is to give it extra strength. It has worked so well I did the same in the shower to that crystal handle.
Than I replace the original (to me) rusty screws & flat washers with Stainless Steel to keep the rust to a minimum.
So that’s it so far with the BR faucet. Working fine now. Like new. Something so simple…