A Toilet Won't Flush Itself, You've Got to "Get A Handle on It"

Recently the toilet handle in my hall bathroom has become weak. It felt as if it was flexing, or bending, within the tank when you went to flush it. Also, there was the issue of the chain getting in the way of the flapper valve. Because the handle had drooped down, the chain was able to be pulled under the flapper causing the toilet to run continuously. I'm not a jiggle the handle kind of guy. Toilets are very easily fixed in most cases, and parts are pretty cheap too.

I decided to replace my handle with one that has a metal arm. The plastic ones seem to work fine for the older toilets with the smaller flapper valves, but the metal ones are my favorite, because they never droop, or flex. When it comes to toilets with larger flapper valves, the plastic handles bend a lot before you get the valve to unseat. The cost difference is about $3 between metal and plastic.

I ran into an issue because the square opening in my tank is much larger than the square on my new flush handle. So I used a scrap piece of aluminum angle iron/stock to make a spacer. I had to do the same thing on my other toilet years ago, but I used a plastic angle piece I had lying around.

With the plastic handles you can just crank down on the nut that secures it until the handle won't rotate in the square opening. With plastic handles, there’s usually enough surface area where the handle assembly contacts the outside of the tank that it won't spin. With a metal handle, there’s very little surface area, and I don't want to crank down on the nut, because the handle will still try to spin even if tightened VERY tightly. That's not good because you could crack the tank!

You can see how the angle iron piece takes up the extra space allowing the handle to fit in the square tank opening snuggly. Because it fits snuggly, you won't have to crank down on the nut holding the handle.

This is what it looks like when the angle piece is in place.

You'll have to hold the angle iron part in place when you install the handle, or you could tape it in place with some scotch tape. Put it in, tighten the nut, adjust the flush valve chain and you're good to go.

I hope this helps someone who's run into a similar issue.

Let me know what toilet adventures you've been on! 😉👉

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