Toilet seat problem (with photos)

[Bowness72]

Hi everybody,

I have a recurring problem with my toilet seat. I have done a search on here and found a few cases that sound very similar but which may or may not be caused by the same thing.

My toilet seat keeps moving out of position and eventually one of the threaded rods works completely loose and falls out. Im fairly sure the main cause is because the bolt holes in the pan are out of line and unfortunately I didnt spot this until in the middle of installation.

The original toilet and seat combination (savoy something or other) seemed to last longer but any subsequent new seat fails in no time with no particularly heavy usage apart from young kids jumping on and off.

Does anyone know a solution apart from obviously buying a new pan ?
The replacement toilet seats I have tried in the past always seem to be as shown in the photos (from B & Q usually). Im not yet convinced that a more expensive seat would solve the problem because you dont necessarily get what you pay for as I paid a bit more for the toilet in the first place and still ended up with this problem.

Options that I have seen on other threads seem to be a seat with a metal rod between the hinges and using metal wing nuts rather than plastic.

Any other ideas or success stories of these particular fixes ?

Cheers

Not sure how well the photos will work as things seem to have changed since I last posted some on here

 

[Bowness72]

Try photos again............

 

[Bowness72]

And again..........

http://s123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/bowness72/?action=view&current=P1010038.jpg&newest=1

http://s123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/bowness72/?action=view&current=P1010041.jpg&newest=1

http://s123.photobucket.com/albums/o294/bowness72/?action=view&current=P1010039.jpg&newest=1

 

[Master of None]

My girlfriend had the same problem. I realised the problem was that the seat was central on the pan but not correct from front to back so the plastic bits were always close to slipping off the bowl. No amount of brute force on the bolts will correct this. I solved it by instead of looking at the top when adjusting, look underneath and ensure the center of each plastic pad is resting on the bowl. You will probably find it will still look ok from the top. Never moved again in 2 years. I think the real problem is that the seats are made to fit most toilets but none perfectly. The most important thing is that the plastic strips sit central on the china. And obviously that the screws from disc to seat and bolts from disc to toilet are nice and tight.
PS The method of adjustment on these seats is flexible but pretty crude. surely someone could design a better system.

 

[RigidRaider]

Annoying aren't they?

Nice pan. I used to know a bloke who was so thick he thought there was a town in China called vitreous....

 

[TicklyT]

.....no particularly heavy usage apart from young kids jumping on and off.....

That might be a clue to the root of the problem - if the kids aren't quite tall enough to sit straight on the seat, their shuffling on and off the seat can put a lot of sideways load on the hinges - maybe as much as several times their weight!

I would think about packing the holes in the pan with wooden plugs or pieces of dowelling cut to just less than the thickness of the china, and glued into place (don't make them a tight fit - Wood swells if it gets wet, and you don't want to crack the pan!), then drill accurately aligned holes just large enough for the studs through the dowels.

A drop of loctite on the studs before fitting them in the hinges may stop them from working loose.

Use penny washers on the underside, and sandwich a fibre or rubber washer against the china to give the fixings a bit more grip.

Adjust the eccentricity of both hinges so the pads under the seat rest evenly on the rim of the pan before finally tightening everything.
Sometimes an extra packing washer or two under the hinges is needed to get the front pads to rest nicely on the rim of the pan.

 

[Nige F]

Get a Doc M seat..it`s got lugs to stop it sliding off when the users launch themselves onto it