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I am trying to replace my kitchen faucet and have encountered a nut that I don’t know how to get at. As you can see the nut is bounded by counter (green) on one side and sink (red) on the other. I’ve tried various wrenches but can’t seem to get them in there. What’s the right way to get this thing off?

The pipe that it’s on is about 2.5 inches long.

faucet nut

BinaryTox1n
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  • I used pliers but it was rusty, so I used WD40 and it helped – cagri Nov 17 '18 at 19:23
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    WD40 is not much help on rust, and that's not what it's designed for. You want Pb Blaster, Liquid Wrench, or a similar product. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Nov 17 '18 at 23:32
  • Why won't a ratchet and long reach socket do the trick? – BossRoss Nov 19 '18 at 11:46
  • Would you keep us posted on how this goes, and what the final solution was? – Daniel Griscom Nov 19 '18 at 14:59
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    @DanielGriscom I called a guy and he came and chopped the faucet off at the top with a sawzall. Took about 1 minute. Made me feel real dumb for spending all that time trying to get off from the bottom. – BinaryTox1n Nov 19 '18 at 15:19
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    Glad it worked out. You might want to add this to your question (as a "this is what ended up happening" edit), or even as a new answer (as a "ended up cutting the faucet off from the top" statement). Whatever would help someone in the future who's in your situation. – Daniel Griscom Nov 19 '18 at 16:00

3 Answers3

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What you want is a basin wrench:

Basin wrench (Source)

The left end pivots so you can reach up under the sink and access the nut.

That said, you have some serious corrosion going on there. You might have to go with destructive methods, perhaps involving grinding off the top of the faucet.

Daniel Griscom
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    Wow! Ten up-votes in three hours! There seems to be a deep need for basin wrench answers... – Daniel Griscom Nov 17 '18 at 19:44
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    I picked up a basin wrench and can tell its what should have worked, but your intuition was right - it’s so corroded it won’t budge. I get to ask another question about how to remove a corroded faucet now. – BinaryTox1n Nov 17 '18 at 19:52
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    It's interesting, I actually had bought one like that, when replacing toilet fill valve, but never understood how to make it grip anything. In the end I have found that for those hard to reach places something like deep hex sockets seem to work best. I don't know what's the proper English name for them, but they are like long hex tubes with 2 holes in 1 end, where you can insert a metallic stick for helping with turning. Probably meant for cars. Maybe wouldn't work on OP nut, since it seems to be very round – Gnudiff Nov 17 '18 at 21:24
  • @Gnudiff: "Deep hex socket" is the correct term. However, in this case, that would be a rather large socket that probably costs $30 or more, plus an extension and ratchet if you don't already have them. Better to just grab the angle grinder and cut it off. –  Nov 17 '18 at 21:44
  • @user128216 that's why I wasn't sure about the term. The set of sockets I have are just rather thin hollow plain hex tubes, they don't have the Square slot at the other end for ratchet or anything. They are thinner than the usual ones (with square hole at the other end) and therefore quite handy for getting into tight places exactly because you don't have to put in ratchet at the other end. – Gnudiff Nov 17 '18 at 21:49
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    @Gnudiff Those would be known as box spanners. – Andrew Morton Nov 17 '18 at 23:22
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    Or try using a simpler crow's foot spanner which actually will often do the job better – Graham Nov 18 '18 at 01:11
  • Yes! 24 hours, and twenty up-votes! (It took me five minutes to answer this. Boy, is SE rep weird...) – Daniel Griscom Nov 18 '18 at 17:03
  • This is on the Hot Network Questions list: lots of views => lots of votes. Cool tool though! – Cullub Nov 19 '18 at 02:45
  • 36 hours, 31 upvotes. This is silly. – Daniel Griscom Nov 19 '18 at 12:51
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You could use a box spanner, the pipe will go up the body of the spanner and the pin used to turn the spanner is not fixed.

I have used basin wrenches ( I know them as tap wrenches ) but sometime get frustrated with them!

enter image description here

Bonzo
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File a bit of steel pipe so that you have two pins that match the notches in the nut - this will lengthen the nut to a point where you can apply normal tools.

D Duck
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  • Making a tool is always possible - may not be the quickest nor cheapest solution but its the most educational. – Criggie Nov 18 '18 at 07:35