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This is the faucet and shower diverter setup up in one of my bathrooms:

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The diverter is not working properly. Even when it's fully in, I get about 25% flow out of the shower head, and the remainder out of the tub spout. And when I pull it out all the way, which should divert all the water to the shower head, I only get about 50% flow from the shower head and the rest keeps coming out of the tub spout. On the plus side, the diverter itself does not leak AFAIK.

I've removed the diverter and this is what it looks like:

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I can see through the hole on the side that one of the O-rings is loose and sticking out.

I'm wondering if I can replace the diverter in its entirety or at least the cartridge portion that does the water diverting. The only identifying info I see on anything is Emco on the overflow cover. So it's hard to determine what the replacement part would be.

Am I barking up the wrong tree here? Should I instead replace the tub spout with a generic one that has a diverter built in, and just leave this old diverter in place and non-functional? Or should I order an O-ring kit and try to take this diverter apart and replace the O-rings?

I do see a Moen Waltec diverter at Home Depot that looks a heck of a lot like the business end of the diverter I have:

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Thanks.

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  • Take the present part into a good plumbing supply business and they can tell you what will fit. It might be that all you need is a new O-ring. I pulled out a balky Price-Pfister diverter and all it needed was lubricating with plumber's grease. I used a silicone grease. I asked a well respected plumbing supply and they said they would prefer for me to bring the old part in for them to be sure what to replace it with.
    – Jim Stewart
    Commented Jul 20 at 16:26

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OK, after digging around online some more, I was able to determine that what I showed in the first image in my question is a Waltec shower diverter with a decorative shroud and knob. Most of the length and exposed parts are the diverter itself. The shroud is a relatively short collar that sits over top of the diverter and the knob screws onto the end:

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I found a replacement for sale here in Canada at Canadian Tire, and they include a nice cutaway view that makes this clearer:

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At Canadian Tire, this is sold under the Waltec brand, part number PS6030 PEF. According to another site I found selling this part, it "Fits Starburst and Flotrol concealed tub and showers (since 1974)."

As a side note, I think this part had been installed for a long time and it was very difficult to get the collar off. I had to grip it with vice grips over top of a rag to reduce damage to the collar. It was still impossible to turn so I tried some Liquid Wrench which still didn't help much. Finally I tried pouring boiling water over it in case there was some thread sealant on it (which I don't think there should have been given that the collar is decorative and does not do any water sealing). It finally came off then and once it was off, I could see there was a bunch of putty like stuff in the threads. Almost feels like someone put plumbers putty on the threads. Cleaned that out very thoroughly and reinstalled with dry threads.

Hopefully this helps someone else.

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