Our kitchen faucet was not working very well.  When you pushed the spout to either side, the whole faucet would turn.  When you pushed the lever to shut off the water, the valve would snap shut so hard it made the pipes rattle.  This should be simple to fix, yes?

First things first.  Take everything out from under the sink and figure out where to put it.  This may be the most stressful part of the process.  Why do we need four different bottles of silver polish?  What’s with all these plastic bags from the supermarket?

Now, examine the situation.  Hmm, that big nut under the sink holding the faucet in place.  I will need to loosen that so I can remove the faucet so I can take the faucet apart so I can clean it and replace any worn-out O-rings.  But the only tool I have that fits that nut is too bulky to use in the space between the back of the sink and the cabinet.  I need a tool.

Off to Ace Hardware.  They’re just right down the street.  Fast trip, there and back home and we can get this thing done.  But it seems Ace doesn’t have what I need.  What I need is a tool called a basin wrench.  Ace sells a basin wrench but it is too small to fit that nut.

I go home and measure the nut.  It’s metric.  I need a basin wrench that fits a 36mm nut (just under one-and-a-half inches).  Go to the web.  It looks like Sears sells a basin wrench that (it claims) handles up to one-and-a-half inch nuts.  Off to Sears and back home with a wrench.  It works, the faucet is loose.

Now I need to take off the handle so that I can take apart the faucet so I can clean it up.  Hmm, there is a nylon slotted-head screw I need to remove first.  I rotate it nine or ten turns, but it doesn’t come out.  The plumber must have stripped the threads on the screw when he installed the faucet.  I’ll have to drill a hole in it and see if I can pry it out.

I get my drill and the smallest drill bit I can find, and I drill a hole in the center of the slot.  I put the sharp end of a pick into the hole and out pops… a snap-in plastic plug.  It was not a screw at all.  It only had a slot on the head to, what, make it look like a screw?  Surprise!

Okay, this plastic piece is out, now I can get down to business.  There is a set screw behind that plastic part, this is the screw I need to loosen so I can remove the handle and get to the rest of the faucet.  Now this set screw has a hex-shaped socket-head.  I think I am in good shape, since I have a whole set of hex wrenches that were left behind by the owner of my first home in 1976 and which I have held onto ever since.

I try the 1/8″ hex wrench — hmm, doesn’t fit into the socket.  I try the next smaller size, which is 7/64″.  (Note: I need to get out a magnifying glass to read the 7/64 engraved into the side of the wrench.)  This wrench grabs a little, but then lets go, grabs and lets go.  The wrench is the wrong size.  This must be a metric socket.  Back to the internet.  Yes, it must be a 3mm socket, halfway between 1/8″ and 7/64″.  But, I don’t have a 3mm hex wrench.  I need a tool.  This time we go to Home Depot.  Tomorrow, after a martini.

It is tomorrow.  I now have a set of metric hex-wrenches from Home Depot.  I am ready.  The 3mm hex wrench turns out to be the right tool for the job, and the set screw loosens and the handle comes off.  Now I look at the top of the faucet.  Unbelievable.  The screw that fastens the handle adapter to the stem of the faucet cartridge has a star-socket head.  This is also known as a Torx head.  Torx-head screws were invented by engineers who didn’t want people like you and me touching their precious screws.  Luckily, I have one of those 12-in-1 screwdriver gadgets that happens to include a Torx bit, so I can remove that annoying screw.

Not that it makes any difference.  I can now see the faucet cartridge, but I can’t remove it before I unscrew a large retaining nut.  I try to turn the nut but it is so tightly attached to the faucet that the whole faucet turns.  Hmm.  I originally loosened the faucet so I could remove the faucet so I could disassemble the faucet so I could clean the faucet.  Maybe this was not such a good idea.  So I went back to the basin wrench to retighten the faucet onto the countertop.  Maybe that would let me loosen that nut that held the cartridge in place.

Nope, I still cannot get that retaining nut loose.  I try to turn the nut and the whole faucet wants to turn.  So I can’t remove the cartridge.  And so I can’t take the spout off the faucet and inspect the O-rings and clean them.  I am stuck.

Well, maybe I can do something about how the faucet valve slams shut when you shut off the flow.  So I spray some WD-40 into the cartridge.  Works on everything else, right?  Hmm, didn’t seem to help much. Well, let’s put some WD-40 into that crack between the spout and the faucet body.  Okay, the spout moves a little better than it used to, so let’s put everything back together and see how it all works.

I open the cold and hot water shutoff valves at the bottom of the cabinet and I hear flow.  Moments later I hear the flow suddenly slow to a trickle.  Now what?

I work the faucet lever open and closed, open and closed.  No change.  I open and close the hot and cold water shutoff valves a couple of times — maybe something is stuck there.  Or maybe the seal in one of the shutoff valves crumbled as a result of being opened and closed too many times and fragments of it are now clogging the faucet cartridge.  Could be.  So I disconnect the water supply tube under the faucet, hoping to see a few chunks of debris come back out.  Nothing.  I reconnect the water tube and try the faucet.  Still only a trickle.

In desperation (what can it hurt?) I remove the faucet handle again and spray Fantastik cleaner into the top of the cartridge, thinking that this might help clean out the WD-40, if it was the WD-40 that got into the cartridge and reduced the flow to a trickle.  No help.

So I re-install the handle and call the plumber.  He will be here tomorrow at noon.

Lucy (of “I Love Lucy” fame) invariably made small problems bigger by her bumbling but well-meaning interventions.  Lucy always wanted to prove a point and did things she had no business doing.  Desi would have called a plumber right away.  I called my inner Lucy.