Tank ball / seat not sealing = leak

Hi all, I have an old American Standard ter-let (like we say in Brooklyn) that has a slow leak at the ball / seat. The seat is copper, i tried 5 different balls. I also tried gently steel wooling (med then fine) the seat but this does not have much of an effect on the seat surface . Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

sanding stone

steel wool aint gonna cut it.

go get a sanding stone and try to get the rough spots out of the brass with it.
Basically its the type that you use to sharpen a knife, its about 1 1/2 by 5 long and about an inch thick.

Just lay it down on the brass ring and start
scaapeing it back and forth till you get a nice shiny base for the flapper or ball to seat down on.

Be very careful not to break off or damage the brass overflow tube coming up .

Sometimes its better to install a flat flapper type of seal on the older brass
types like this once you have sanded it down to where it has a really flat surface.

leak

AA tank ball seals to the inner surface of the flush valve, so unless you have a Douglas Valve resurfacer you will not get the proper shape by grinding it. Either smooth the surface and use a flapper, assuming yours is not an American Standard valve with the high "boss" that does not allow a flapper to slide down far enough to seat properly, or use a Fluidmaster #555 kit that glues a new seat and hinge to the existing surface.

Thanks alot guys! Can I use just the seal from that repair kit giving me a new surface for the current system (ball) to seal against? thanks

seal

It might but why would you want to have to deal with it along with the wires and guides that are nothing but problems?

OK thanks, I thought that it may have been a gasket that bonded to the existing bad seat surface. Thanks