Okey dokey, the 'disc' you see in that picture Gus is the retainer for the seal. When you spread the tabs to take the valve off the base it just falls out. That rubber is just seals the shaft where it goes into the valve itself. On the other end, the valve with it’s stem is installed from the bottom and the tube is capped off with the silver brazed plug that Alvin was talking about.
The rebuild is simply cleaning up the disassembled unit and replacing the rubber disc, that’s it. The rebuilders don’t open up the bottom end of the valve and there is no reason to do that. There is nothing to rebuild in there. It’s simply a metal valve that closes off the water flow against a metal seat. As I’ve mentioned several times, it is not a perfectly watertight seal, some water will seep past it even when it is closed.
The only reason these leak and need rebuilding is because the rubber disc that seals the stem dries out as you can see in the picture. A Ranco valve rebuild consists of 10c worth of parts (one rubber disc, a rip cuz they get ten bucks for it) and a lot of very careful tab bending and seating. In other words, it’s 99% labor.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL
