Leaking Toilet. Tried Everything...

Hello All. I'm new to posting on the forum but visit frequently when performing plumbing projects!

We just moved into a "new," older house and determined, the hard way (clogged and overflow), that the toilet has a leak from the tank to the bowl. I've done the food coloring test to determine. The "insides" were quite old so I decided to change everything out. New fill valve, flush valve, seat gasket...everything. I still have a much slower leak (determined again by the food coloring test). I've read somewhere that it could be "siphoning" of the fill valve... Could that cause food coloring to get into the bowl? Any other ideas of what may be causing this? I'm to the point of thinking it may be a slight crack somewhere near the flush valve and just replacing the entire toilet (probably my irrational thinking checking in).

Thanks!
CR

Siphoning can be prevented by having the output of the little hose above the tank water level. For testing, you could temporarily just move the tip of the hose to the tank rather than being in the overflow tube.

Did you replace the flush valve seat? Feel for roughness.

You probably did MORE than you had to to fix the leak, but since you did, there is no apparent reason for you to still have it, unless the tube is siphoning into the bow, and that is easy to see just by looking at it..

by tube siphoning into the bowl do you mean the refill tube siphoning water into the overflow tube? and to eliminate that i just shorten the refill tube into the overflow? Thank you for your help.

does the refill water pull from the tank or from the water supply directly? I'm not sure how i can still be getting food coloring into the bowl if the refill tube into the overflow tube is pulling directing from the water supply. The flush valve seat appears to be in good shape.

cr0206 said:

does the refill water pull from the tank or from the water supply directly? I'm not sure how i can still be getting food coloring into the bowl if the refill tube into the overflow tube is pulling directing from the water supply.

Click to expand...

I don't know. It's a black box to me. Easy to test for or correct. That may differ from refill valve to refill valve for all I know.

It's not the length of the tubing. It is where the tip is that would make siphoning possible or impossible. If you don't have a clip to hold the hose high enough, you can get one by getting a Fluidmaster Flush 'n Sparkle. I don't know that the Kaboom Scrub Free comes with a new clip.

cr0206 said:

The flush valve seat appears to be in good shape.

Click to expand...

Touch is more sensitive to debris or scoring than is vision.

IOW, the end of the refill hose MUST be held above the top of the overflow tube for things to work properly. Usually, there's a clip that holds the end and directs the flow into the overflow. If you don't have one, you may need to try to fashion one up.

Yeah, it needs to be "daylighted" above the lip of the overflow riser; the supplier of your kit should have given you a little clip with which to accomplish this.

Yes, it will siphon water from the tank. So yes, the food coloring would go. That's the whole point of a "siphon".

You don't need to "shorten" anything. You just need to clip it above the overflow riser and pointing into the riser.

Having replaced what you replaced, the only other thing it is likely to be is a flapper that isn't seating correctly. It wouldn't be a cracked overflow riser if you replaced the flush valve.

And, yeah, you probably don't need to replace the toilet. And a crack in the china wouldn't be putting water into the flush valve, which is the only way it's going to be getting into the bowl (assuming this is a two-piece toilet, i.e. tank and bowl).

Is there a water line mark inside the tank, on the wall? Where is your water relative to that line?

Is it an adjustable height fill valve?