DO-IT-YOURSELF FAUCET REPLACEMENT ON THE MIXER

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Is the mixer running? This is fixable! The water supply communications of many apartments, to put it mildly, leave much to be desired, to this are added periodic shutdown of water and pipe tests, as a result of which dirt gets into our mixers and taps. It is she, or rather, sand, that ultimately becomes the root cause of breakdowns. Unfortunately, these are the realities of our lives.
And, as practice shows, neither the quality of the product, nor the installation of filters do not save from this, but only slightly delay their failure. What to do, what to do if your crane suddenly began to undermine or even run? We will repair.
Now we will analyze just such a case: a kitchen valve mixer began to let in hot water. It was produced by the famous Bulgarian company Vidima, and it fell a victim of sand that got inside.
Most often, it is grains of quartz that fall into the axle box, grind off its ceramic surface, thereby giving passage to water!

We have several ways to solve the problem.

Very simple repair

Let's start with the first one, I would call it “Lucky”, and all because it will have to do indecently little action. All you need to do is turn the valve head from the dripping side in the direction of unscrewing, i.e. counterclock-wise.
If it is not tightened tightly, this whole node will unscrew. In this case, further disassembly and replacement of the damaged part will take very little time. Here's how it looks on the example of cold water (we have it on the left).

Easy replacement

In the following case, the situation will be like this: the valve head with the valve and the crane-crane is not unscrewed. In this case, unscrew the top cap (it is on the thread), unscrew the screw with a screwdriver.

Next, we try to remove the valve from the slots, if necessary, gently tapping on it from below, of course, using a non-metallic object for this.

If everything worked out, great! It remains only to unscrew the decorative cap and unscrew the crane box for its further replacement.
Please note that the crane box in appearance and size is not the same for different manufacturers, so do not rush to get rid of it: it will come in handy for selecting a new one!

Complete disassembly

Yes, this is what you will have to face in most cases. So, everything turned out differently from us as we would like: for six years of faithful service where hot water runs (it drips), everything has become completely stuck. There is only one option left: you need to remove and disassemble already in more convenient conditions.
Let's start by unscrewing the liner from the pipes. Before that, do not forget to shut off the water!
To do this, we need an adjustable wrench KR-20 or KR-30. An ordinary wrench will not work, because there is a 25 mm nut (although, in principle, such spanners and combination wrenches are found).

After that, remove the mixer from the sink, here we use a tubular (socket) key, in this case 12 mm. Unscrewing the nut from the stud, remove the tap by pulling the hoses through the hole in the sink.

The next step is to unscrew the inlet from the mixer. We produce this with a 10 mm key.

Now that’s all, you can start the main work. We remove the plug, unscrew the screw and, gently tapping (now it is much more convenient to do it), remove the valve.

If he doesn’t want to get down, you can moisten this place with the WD-40, but you should not get involved: it destroys the gaskets.

Having removed it, we unscrew the cap and get access to the crane box itself. Most likely, she got stuck seriously, so you have to try to unscrew it.
We work again with an adjustable wrench, if necessary, you can gently clamp the mixer, prudently protecting its chrome surface from damage.
After two attempts, we succeeded.

Now the matter remains small: to find and buy (it is better, of course, to do this in advance if the exact model and firm of the device is known) a new crane box and put it in place. And then everything is in the reverse order.

Yes, taking this opportunity, I will say: do not be too lazy to clean and wipe the product with some cleaning agent from lime deposits in hard-to-reach places.