How do I take apart this shower control?

Question

Our shower mixer is leaking (dripping from shower head and from the mixer when running) so I want to take it apart to replace the seals

However I can’t get the white cap off to expose, I hope, a screw or bolt holding it all together.

Am I going about this the wrong way? Is the thread left or right handed, if threaded at all? Should i just take the back plate off first?

The white handle sticking out on the right-hand side, which turns on the water by rotating anti-clockwise, can be unscrewed from the centre shaft. So I'm thinking of cutting the silicone around the back plate to see if that can be pulled off; the size of the hole in the back plate would just go over the "tap" handle on the front.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Answer 1

Eventually, with more force applied, the front cap did unscrew (standard right hand thread) to reveal a 16mm hex insert.

However, this was misleading, as inside the tap handle is a screw. Removing the screw allows the handle to be pulled out.

Inside, the next stage is held on with a washer and C clip. They have already been removed in this picture - you will also notice the tap is no longer in the wall!

Removing the tiny C-clip, and the temperature limiting button, allows this section to be pulled out; it required some force to get it to move. The next stage had another C-clip behind the toothed wheels.

After removing the clip I could not get the final stage out of the valve. Here's a picture of all the clips (sorry they are not in the correct order!)

It was at this point I gave up trying and decided to extract it from the wall. This also proved difficult as it had been installed before the false wall was put in. This resulted in a number of tiles needing to be removed and the plywood "wall" chiselled to get access.

With no knowledge of how it was fixed to the wall I levered it off - not pretty. Once removed I noticed some small grub screws holding the two parts together. Even if I'd known about them I not sure I would have been able to get a hex key in there to take them out.

I then set about removing and capping the pipes, rebuilding the wall with a ply insert, and tiling. I did not have any of the original tiles but managed to find some in a local shop, even though they are a bit of a darker shade. Job done!

I hope some of this information helps others trying to remove old shower valves.