Stuck Moen faucet cartridge.

[pasadena_commut]

The Moen 84200 in our bathroom, at least 20 years old, has a drip. I'm starting with the hot side, and that cartridge does not want to budge. Using a variety of screwdrivers I have managed to pry it up about 1mm. Unfortunately when I put the bigger screwdriver underneath and pry it only goes up about one more mm, and then snaps back into the original position. The whole hot water line is open, and another valve is open, so there is no vacuum. I tried yanking on it with some channel locks but it wouldn't budge, and I was afraid of the tool slipping off and hitting the sink hard enough to break it (even through a towel.) Suggestions? Pictures below are a bit dark, sorry. Hard to take pictures with a flash on a white sink. I don't have good access to it from below (was considering removing the supply line and pounding upward, but the shutoff valve is in the way.)

Edit: adjusted brightness in pictures.

 

[Rickyman]

Here's how I do it

 

[pasadena_commut]

Thanks.

Wait, the claw of the hammer is under a screw. There is no screw there on ours, and there are no threads on the inside of the handle part of the cartridge. Is that a sheet metal screw, or something similar that will cut its own grooves?

Anyway, mechanically that is pretty close to what I ended up with. Took the 11" pry bar from this set:

https://www.harborfreight.com/2-piece-flat-pry-bar-set-67477.html

placed the pointy end of the 90 degree claw on the cartridge body below the flange, which was really beaten up by this point and had been pried up about a millimeter so the body was exposed. Tapped it in gently with a rubber mallet so that it "bit". Put a 2x4 underneath that and pulled away from the cartridge and down. It took a couple of attempts, but eventually the cartridge popped up about a centimeter and was free. Interestingly (in terms of the next replacement) the new one dropped in and stopped about 1 cm up. More or less the point where it became "free" when pried up. It had to be tapped down gently until the nut could grab some threads and pull it in the rest of the way.

Things that didn't work for me:

1. Turn the water on. The cartridge didn't budge and it didn't even leak. Our house pressure is 80 PSI.
2. Clamp a vice grip onto the handle stem part of the cartridge, put a screw driver in above the handle, inside the clamp, pry up. This might have worked but I didn't have a really big flat blade screwdriver that would provide enough leverage. My biggest flat blade is only around 8" long.
3. Rotate the cartridge. Grabbed the flange with a big pair of channel locks and rocked it back and forth. Eventually it sheared off the tab and the cartridge could rotate (with some force) a full 360. But that didn't loosen whatever was holding it in. The basis for this was experience removing car hoses, where rotating the hose on the pipe a few degrees back and forth is often enough to break it free. Not so here.

Got to laugh at the illustrated instructions that came with the cartridge. It shows a small set of pliers, probably 8" long, used to pull the cartridge out by the stem. It doesn't show the gorilla holding those pliers!

 

[BlueSkyHigh]

Thanks.

Wait, the claw of the hammer is under a screw. There is no screw there on ours, and there are no threads on the inside of the handle part of the cartridge. Is that a sheet metal screw, or something similar that will cut its own grooves?

Anyway, mechanically that is pretty close to what I ended up with. Took the 11" pry bar from this set:

https://www.harborfreight.com/2-piece-flat-pry-bar-set-67477.html

placed the pointy end of the 90 degree claw on the cartridge body below the flange, which was really beaten up by this point and had been pried up about a millimeter so the body was exposed. Tapped it in gently with a rubber mallet so that it "bit". Put a 2x4 underneath that and pulled away from the cartridge and down. It took a couple of attempts, but eventually the cartridge popped up about a centimeter and was free. Interestingly (in terms of the next replacement) the new one dropped in and stopped about 1 cm up. More or less the point where it became "free" when pried up. It had to be tapped down gently until the nut could grab some threads and pull it in the rest of the way.

Things that didn't work for me:

1. Turn the water on. The cartridge didn't budge and it didn't even leak. Our house pressure is 80 PSI.
2. Clamp a vice grip onto the handle stem part of the cartridge, put a screw driver in above the handle, inside the clamp, pry up. This might have worked but I didn't have a really big flat blade screwdriver that would provide enough leverage. My biggest flat blade is only around 8" long.
3. Rotate the cartridge. Grabbed the flange with a big pair of channel locks and rocked it back and forth. Eventually it sheared off the tab and the cartridge could rotate (with some force) a full 360. But that didn't loosen whatever was holding it in. The basis for this was experience removing car hoses, where rotating the hose on the pipe a few degrees back and forth is often enough to break it free. Not so here.

Got to laugh at the illustrated instructions that came with the cartridge. It shows a small set of pliers, probably 8" long, used to pull the cartridge out by the stem. It doesn't show the gorilla holding those pliers!

Glad it worked out for you. Silicone grease could possibly prevent that "stickion" in the future.

 

[pasadena_commut]

Did the other (cold) cartridge today. Put a screw in (from a box of 1.5" lathe screws I had) with a washer into the handle part, then used the pry bar and a block of wood. It popped right out. See the first picture. Note the rust stains on the cartridge, oddly those were not as bad on the hot cartridge.

Also replaced the hoses, which are 12" 1/2" FIP to 1/2" FIP. The new one is BrassCraft (from Home Depot) and no idea what the old one was. Oddly the flow rate is a little slower now. Not sure if that is because of the new cartridges or the new hoses. The hoses look slightly different on the ends, but the minimum diameter looks pretty close. Maybe the BrassCraft has smaller diameter tubing inside? See second picture, BrassCraft on the bottom.