Friday, June 20, 2008

Sears Valve Body drips at INLET

Customer Writes:
I have a Sears water softener.  Model 625.348590
It is leaking where the supply side water inlet goes into the top valve body.  Just drip drip drip all the time.  quite a bit of water.   I believe I need to get part number 7082053 ( Valve Body standard ).  That is the part in the Sears web site schematic.  I need to check something on that part though.
looking at this image, the top left is the inlet and the bottom left is the outlet.  Inside the inlet, just behind the clip slot (about an inch in from the top left), there is a little "step" that the mating part "butts" up against.  On mine, one side of this is smooth while the "step" goes about 3/4 of the way around.  I think over 10 years of hard water, the "step" on that side has "eroded" away.  I believe that is where the water seeps out since there is nothing for the mating part to butt up against on that side.
Can you check and see that the parts your parts have the step molded into the inlet side and that it goes all the way around the inside of the hole ?
If you look down the "throat" of the inlet, the circle on the left is what mine looks like now.  The circle on the right is how I think it should look. I think the water leaks out where there is no step anymore.
 
***************
    Thanks for the detailed explanation and diagram. 
* I checked the Valve Bodies we have in stock. They ALL are made the way you describe.
The inner portion of the Inlet has a "step" that only goes around 3/4 of the way. The Outlet is 100%.
And I noticed the larger version valve bodies ( 7171145 ) have NO "step".
I believe the KEY to not leaking is the Oring ( 7170288 ) and the condition of the Plastic valve body.
They are regular plastic, so over time they can warp or crack.
We have been selling a lot of these every month. So, your problem is fairly common.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have installed the valve body, but there is a leak at the outlet connection. I have replaced o-ring three times from different vendors (OEM, Lowe's, ...), but having the same leak (With the old valve body, I had manageable small leak at inlet connection, but this time, it is at the outlet). Do you have recommendations to fix the problem?
Thank you,
XD
***** A Possible SOLUTION *******

I have used teflon tape and it seems to work. I wrapped a few layers of tape in the o-ring grove and then insert the o-ring. So far there is no leak. Please relay the message to customers who may have similar problem. Thank you, -XD