Help me fix a running toilet, well two.

All of a sudden two of my toilet decided to start leaking and refill the tank every minute or so. I change the flappers with a kit from HD and nothing, decided to order the original Kohler part and they still run. Its a very small leak, but enough to drain the tank and drive me nuts at night. 

What else could it be besides the flap? Is the seal between the tank and toilet another leak point? or that pipe in the middle?

Can I get some sort of food die or something that can tell me where the water is flowing from?

Thanks!

Drop some food coloring in the tank and watch where it goes.

Thoughts:  1) Scrub the flange in the bottom of the tank.  If it has crud stuck to it, it won't ever seal under the flap.  2) have you noticed anything in your water, or is the city doing maintenance to water mains?  Our water supply at work is untouched since the place was built in 1953 and the city water is a bit dirty.  I had to scrub my tanks at work about once a year, but about 2 years ago they started doing a bunch of work on the mains and I get running toilets about once a week.  3) replacement flappers are sometimes awful.  They make two replacement flappers to try and cover 20 different manufacturers and it may just be a poor fit.  4) are you sure your float isn't out of adjustment or has water in it?  It could let it overfill the tank and lose some down the overflow standpipe.

I 2nd checking the sealing surface of the flush valve. I usually give them a few swipes with some 600 wet/dry sandpaper when I replace the flappers to clean off any hard water deposits.

I have Kohlers - only use the unique Koehler parts. 

Green Scotch-Bright pads work wonders. I also spray WD-40 onto all of the moving parts in the tank once a year to dissolve the mineral buildup on the float valve and handle.

I did away with all of the cheap plastic valve parts and installed bronze valves with copper floats. That solved 95% of my toilet issues. 

Link. 

Ok. Thanks for all the responses.

A few responses:

- I don't think that anything has changed in the water supply, but I also have not been paying a lot of attn.
- I am pretty sure it is not the float/fill valve assembly as I changed one of them and it made no difference.
- I am using factory Kohler flappers at the moment.

I think the next step is to clean the crud of the flapper seat. I just picked up some 3M green pads and will try that as it is something I did not do. I will also try some WD-40 once I clean it all out. Next step is to pick up some food coloring ... not sure yet how this will tell me where the leak is, but I guess if it stays mostly as a clump of color and it goes to the leaking zone that would help.

I will save the brass option for last, I will probably buy and swap a new toilet in before I do that lol.

I waited a couple of weeks to start this thread because I feel like a moron on such a simple issue ... hats off to the guy that invented the toilet, its more complex than it looks lol.

Thanks again!

I like to put a few drops in and don't stir.  They should sink.  If they don't you can gently put the dropper bottle down near the flapper and leave a few drops.

I'm not sure it will help at this point.  You have water leaving the tank and it's not a lake on your floor, so it has to go through the flapper into the bowl, yes?  The food coloring will start making a thread of colored dye to where it's leaking through the flapper, but I think we already know that it's leaking there.  You'll likely see colored water dripping down the bowl after a while, but that just kinda confirms what we already know.

Can you post a picture of inside the tank?  I'm wondering how your overflow tube is installed.  I suppose it could be leaking at the bottom where it meets up with the main flush channel

I'm thinking maybe here where the overflow tube meets up with the tank:

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

That's exactly my thought. But did not know if that was possible.  That's where the die idea came up, to isolate the flapper or the tube. I have heard of die being used to find leaks in pools. 

I will snap a picture later tonight when I get home. 

I'm not a plumber, so when I fix toilets it's one of those "oh yeah, now I remember what they look like" when I take the tank lid off.  I'm not sure it's possible on your Kohler, but I had an American Standard from the 30s that started to leak there at the base of the overflow tube.  It was in a cavity with a rubber gasket that had degraded.

Running toilet?  Gillooley its kneecaps!

Since you've recently changed the flappers, I'll mention that flapper-to-seat fit is crucial to a non-leaking install.  I've had trouble with the Lowe's Depot parts.  One of them installed with a slidey-thingie that could move up and down the overflow tube.  Too high and it would leak.  Too low and it would leak.  Just right and it would leak.

Now I just get the numbers off the tank cover and go to Ferguson Supply for the factory-correct parts.    Because I've got better things to do than spend all day fixing toilets, or so I like to believe. 

1988RedT2 said:

Running toilet?  Gillooley its kneecaps!

I was gonna say, put a Diesel in it, it'll stop running soon enough.