BWW Project #17 Kitchen faucet leak

 BWW Project #17  Kitchen faucet leak

One of our first revelations upon moving in last year was that when water is drawn in the kitchen sink, a stream follows the pipes down and drips onto the basement floor right next to the deep sink.  I am doubting that the elderly lady we bought the house from even knew it was happening.  The countertop is cracked in three places and we know we will either have it repaired or replaced.  This might entail the new sink and new faucet anyway, so it would be ideal if I could just mitigate the leaking and buy us time until we do that.

I opened the faucet head, which is a Moen...

This was probably a high-end faucet when it was installed probably 40 years ago.  There will be O-rings or gaskets in here which could be letting water past, which appears below where the body meets the countertop.  That is all loose and corroded beneath.  Next layer...

Some grit and grime here, which I cleaned up...

I popped the rubber body out here and put it back in after sort-of cleaning it up.  Very difficult to know where the problem is when this is apart because you can't apply pressure in the system.  This next step is very likely where the leak was coming from...

I can't be sure but the nipple comes loose so you can rinse dishes.  Inside is a separate feed tube which screws onto this nozzle.  This was very loose--I could move it with my fingers.  It is very possible that water, when the pressure was on, leaked around the threads and ran down the inside of the unit, followed the pipes down and into the basement.  I put teflon tape on the threads and tightened them hand tight but firmly sealed.

After re-assembling the system, we tried the water and found that hot and cold were reversed but that there were no major leaks!  We decided to leave things reversed rather than undo whatever worked in our favor.

Time showed a small amount of water accumulating in the bottom of the compartment beneath, and this was stopped by tightening slightly, the shutoff valve which it could be seen on.  This stopped ALL leaks and we are apparently home free until we want to address the countertop and sink.