Nowty Towers Vs UK Grid Storage

[nowty]

Holly cow, I never noticed they had an internal hex socket.

My bodging way of screwing on the rest of the valve and twisting with a big pipe wrench still worked.

No doubt the next time I'll replace any radiators I'll have forgotten both methods.

[resybaby]

Its been so long since I'd replaced all the radiators I forgot that you need an additional valve body to help unscrew and screw in one of the connectors into the radiator. Luckily I already had one for this purpose but it flummoxed me for a while.

When Iast did radiators the valve tails (?) had a big internal hex shape and the "special tool" had a square driver at the other end for screwing in the cast Iron or brass plugs for the tops.
Recovering the scrap fittings out of old rads sometimes needed a big hex spanner around the tool, like a tommy bar... https://plumbingsuppliesdirect.co.uk/mo ... -spanners/

Thats the tool AE. Squared off large allen key thing to remove the tails, most often with a short bit of 22mm copper slipped over it to increase leverage and break the rusted up crud off the tails themselves.