Duplicating an old toilet supply line

[Dave11]

I've got a 1950's one-piece toilet, and needed to replace the fill valve. Problem is in duplicating the supply line. There's a half-inch chrome water line coming horizontally through the wall, ending at a chrome toilet valve. From there, a compression fitting on top connects to a short piece of 3/8 chrome pipe that ends in the 7/8 nut that connects to the fill valve. The length of that pipe is only 2.5 inches. The original piece was bent in the initial install, but apparently never leaked. But the modern fill valves have threads that are about half an inch longer, and the original piece would need to be bent further to make it fit.

So I went to the plumbing supplier to look for a suitable replacement, but the guy there said no one makes anything like that, in either rigid or flexible tubing.

The shortest flexible/braided line I can find is 6 inches, which is way too long, and there's not enough room to make a loop without really putting sideways pressure on the fittings.

Anyone know of a way to make this connection?

[Terry]

They still make solid risers in 3/8" OD and 1/2" OD
The hardware store may not carry them.

You can also turn the shutoff at the wall away, and use a longer flexible line that loops.
Some of the old one-piece bowls require a full size supply though, and 3/8" may provide too little volume to work.

[Dave11]

It was at the main plumbing supplier that I was told no replacement was still made. Not a hardware store. The same people own a large plumbing company next door. I had the part in my hand, and he looked at it, and said he didn't know of a replacement.

[Dave11]

Here's a pic of what I'm trying to replace

The problem is that the bottom of the fill valve and the end of the horizontal section of the supply line don't line up, and the riser portion is really short, not allowing much room to bend, if its even supposed to be bent at all. But I guess if no one makes tubing this short out of anything flexible, I'll have to force it into position. That looks to be what was done originally.

[Terry]

My supplier still has them. He had 24 in stock.

[jadnashua]

Those typically come a lot longer and you cut them to the needed length, and, they are soft copper so are designed to be bent to get them aligned. It's really hard to do it on a piece that short, though.

As Terry mentioned, if you can rotate the supply valve a little, it would allow you to use a hose with a loop. Instead of having the outlet point up, point it down with a loop in the supply. This should give you enough room to make the connections.