Sillcock disassembly/repair issue

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kost78

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Hi,

Apparently Ferguson is a rather widespread and used distributor for plumbing supplies. And also apparently they have a "house brand" named ProFlo that includes faucets. And among such faucets appears to be PF73 line that includes frost-free sillcocks.

With that, I had a plumber install one of the above units a few years ago because I am not particularly confident in plumbing soldering skills. And in hindsight it seems like he had the unit in his truck for 10 years first, doing a little leaking almost from the get-go that I just tolerated for a while.

Finally having enough, I recently purchased a repair kit that includes parts for the vacuum assembly (an easy one) and also for replacing the seal on the internal stem. But I am unable to disassemble the unit enough to access the stem.

I mean good grief. I went to my local Fergusons and a gentleman kindly pulled a new unit right off the shelf (so they still sell the same model and he said they sell a ton of them as well as the repair kit for it). Yet three terrific people there worked on trying to disassemble the unit for about 40 minutes with no success.

Similar to me, and other than an exploded parts view of poor quality, they found no instructions for doing so in their database and nothing online that addresses it either. The unit has two nuts on the front, with the first one closest to the handle coming off easily (and already removed). But the one closest to the faucet body (image included) has been immovable to this point and so I am unable to remove the stem.

Opinions have varied from that nut being welded onto the body (though no evidence of that) to being a reverse thread (but I cannot budge it that way either). For anyone that might have experience with this design, any input about how I might finish getting the unit apart and stem out would be greatly appreciated (if the design even allows that, but replacement parts are included in the repair kit). Thank you very much in advance for any responses.
 

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I would screw the biggest/sturdiest garden hose I have on first, so you have something to hand onto, otherwise it might twist off the 2 screws holding it to the wall. Or maybe you can get a pipe wrench on the body of the silcock, but it looks recessed in the wall. It's always best to use 2 wrenches, 1 to hold, 1 to turn.
 
Thank you very much for your comments. I sincerely appreciate it.

So there does at least appear to be a general consensus that there is a threaded nut there with a standard thread direction that supposedly can be disassembled, something that could not be determined from the parts diagram found.

I did initially assume the above and did place the wrench right where your kind drawing indicates, but I would have surely broken the unit had I used any more force on it and could not budge the nut. And neither could the very helpful folks at Ferguson trying it on a new, identical unit of theirs, unless we are all missing something.

I did consider a separate, opposing pipe wrench on the faucet body before you mentioned it. And I do have a little room there despite the recess, but do worry about damaging the unit beyond repair. I will reconsider that. And I never thought of attaching a hose to help secure the unit while attempting to turn the nut. Thank you very much for that suggestion.

And there is actually a welded fitting/nut on the other side of the unit that I can access from in the house, right next to the soldered joint but about 10 inches away from the nut I am trying to get off. But even though they held onto that nut at times at Ferguson when trying to get theirs apart, I am skeptical about whether it should try to be used for my purpose.

Anyway, I sincerely thank you again for your suggestions. I will consider them all, make another attempt shortly, and let you know how it turns out.
 
Make sure you're only grabbing the wrench flats and not the faucet body also, its a pretty thin nut right there and easy to do.
 
I did notice that with my first attempt at it, and it was somewhat clumsy to try to work with for me. I have been wondering whether getting too much of the wrench on the faucet body might have somehow hampered me from being able to turn the nut, and I have been pondering putting some tape around the body to help prevent that when I give it my next try. I have mostly been concluding that it is just me and my amateurish procedures and tools. I greatly appreciate the additional feedback and advice. Thank you very much.
 
It was installed with an air impact at the factory. It’s going to be tight.
 
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