bathroombathroom-fixturescleaningfaucet
I wanted to descale my bathroom faucet (for taking showers), so I put some vinegar on a tissue and put it on the faucet.
I left it for 7-8 hours and when I wake up my faucet looks like this:
It has indeed been descaled, but note how the color has vanished on the right part that controls the cold water. How is it possible that vinegar can do that? I think it is made of chrome, I thought vinegar should be OK for that?
It sounds to me like your diverter valve (the round piece w/ the green on it in your pictures) is failing. It may be as simple a fix as pulling the valve and replacing the gaskets (O rings, probably) and reinserting the valve, or alternatively just replacing the diverter valve entirely.
Unscrew the chrome cap surrounding the diverter valve and the valve itself should pull right out. Take that to a plumbing supply shop/lowes/home depot/someone who carries your brand of faucet.
The next step secret to getting more of this faucet apart are the two slots cut across the cupped part. See the arrows in the following picture.
It looks to me as that the cupped part is threaded down inside the larger diameter part that sticks up from the hole in the sink. There is probably a special tool used to engage these slots to thread the part out. It may be possible to lay a piece of metal bar stock across these slots as a tool. If you do that make sure that it has nice square corners.
Best Answer
Im am no expert in this topic, But I do clean metals often. I can only say what I would try. Most of the time the answer is just to polish and clean manually.
From what I can see, you have relatively hard water, and you tried to clean mineral deposits off the faucet. The Vinegar was the correct application, however you are left with some residual mineral deposit which was not removed by the acid wash (vinegar)
I would try now to clean the excess deposits manually. what you don't want to do is damage the chrome surface so steer clear from any sand papers or rough pads you should only use sponge or cloth. Also recommended is to use some toothpaste as your abrasive additive, it will have just enough grit to get the chrome clean.
Try to find a long thin piece of cloth, put a dab of toothpaste and wrap the cloth around the tap, then pull both ends one at a time to make a diy polisher. If you could get one person to "shank" the cloth (pull-pull motion) while you use the back of a spoon to press the cloth harder against the tap (at a point) you will get some really good polish action going.