My kitchen faucet III

So the area around the holes on my sink have cracks and stains. I rubbed it down hard with ajax and soaked it in bleach overnight. That took care of most of the stains, and luckily, the bases of all the components were just large enough to cover up the cracks.

I first installed the control element, then the base of the pull out. I thought the brush finish would have clashed with a white sink, but no, they work together well.



Then I connected the hot and cold lines to the respective water lines, afterwhich, I threaded the pullout through the hole and connected it to the control component.



Lastly I installed the most important part - the heavy sprout, and connected it to the control as well. Now voi la! A new faucet, installed



I took for a spin - hot water, cold water, mixed, no leak worked perfect. The ripping out the old unit was hard and took long, installing the new thing, easy as ABC.

My kitchen faucet II

So I am about to rip out my Moen kitchen faucet. It has served me for over 10 years but now it's just an eye sore, the only emotion I got from replacing it is surprisingly, excitement.

I also felt lucky that I bought a big flash light from Fry's a couple years ago for absolutely no reason. I set it up and it provided good illumination under there for this job

I proceed to crawl down underneath the sink to unscrew the nuts that has been fixing the unit to the sink...

... and disconnected the water line from the main control component...

It took me a while to yank them apart, I did not anticipate that there was a rubber cab, I kept thinking it was a gasket ring. It took brute force.

The unit should be loose now, it's time to take it out and put in the new one.... or so I thought... this is when problems began. First it was the weight on the pull out hose - it's too large for the sink hole. So I disconnected the pull out spray handle, thinking that the hose could slip through the other end, nope.

There are 2 screws on the either side of the word PAT. PEND on the weight. I tried to unscrew them, no luck, it was too tight. I hope they were patenting it as the worst piece of shit ever.

WD-40, power screw driver, nothing worked. I tried to cut the hose, it was too tough for my cutter. An hour has passed and I was sitting on the kitchen floor contemplating in despair the unimaginable possibility that I have to put the whole thing back together and live with it.

I tried to unscrew the screw a few hundred more times, tried to break it with a hammer, and finally twisted it in anguish, and noticed that I could guide it down to the end of the hose like unscrewing a nut down the threads of a screw. So I turned and turned and turned it patiently until reached the end when I realized the hole was just too small for the connector on the hose. I twisted the whole extension like a mad man hoping that would get me somewhere... and miraculously, it did. The chrome casing of the hose started to fall apart, and I used the cutter to cut that up, then the rubber hose inside. Finally the pull out hose is out of the way.

But of course that wasn't the end of the story. Not at all. The putty under the base of the faucet had stained the sink awful. It would take another day of bleaching and hard scrubbing to get them off. And even then, and only until then, when I noticed the damages around the holes. The builder must have bought defective units to save a few bucks. The area around the holes were all cracked and rusty....

They looked absolutely awful. The problem is, the new unit I got was a 3 column one that doesn't have a base plate to cover up all the blemishes. I never anticipated all these hurdles before I started the job. What am I gonna do...