Trim for short shower valve stems.

[Linda Kay]

Hi guys!
Very newbie here, looking for advice:
I had water leaking from hot and cold sides of my shower (hot/shower/cold knobs) and, after trying to replace the stems myself unsuccessfully, I had a plumber come in and fix that part. He noticed that my center trim was being held together via kludge and he advised me to get a replacement flange from whatever big box store. My stems are short, the short flange was even too tall, so I will need to go back to the flange that was there before which is not threaded and the hole is bigger than the stem. I don't care a lot about that (function is more important than form to me), but there is a piece that I need that I can't search because I don't know what it's called! It's a hollow, threaded bolt that goes around the nipple and tightens like a screw to attach the flange to the wall and seal up the hole between the stem and the flange opening. My other two faucets have it, but not sure how to search for it. Can anyone send me in a direction here? Any advice on this issue in general is much appreciated. I'm not planning to get back into the wall or anything, but I can replace all the things I just mentioned!
Thank you!

 

[breplum]

flange nipple; Amazon.com typically can be cut down to fit

 

[Twowaxhack]

Your stems are too short or your handles are not a match for your stem length.

Solution: get longer stems or get new handles that are the canopy type.