Leaking toilet blade seal fix

psa0298 wrote:
I replaced all the seals in my Thetford toilet about 4 years....it cost about $60...rediculous. Last fall the blade seal started slowly leaking again. I tried cleaning it, scrubbing the groves with a brush, etc without success. I figured they should last a little longer. I decided to order an entirely new mechanism service package(another $60 from amazon).....4-6 weeks delivery time. When I was dewinterizing and cleaning I decided to throw a littlte CLR in the bowl and it has since stopped leaking. There must have been some sort of mineral buildup on the blade that the CLR has removed. I'm not sure if anyone else has tried this but it might be worth a shot before replcing you seals.

Moved to Tech Issues forum from DIY.

I tried all kinds of things to stop the leak. Olive oil, silicone spray, made a tool to clean out groove where blade goes, kept it working for 16 years. When this no longer worked I finally decided to replace the seals and removed the toilet and took it apart. What I found was a hard mineral build up that I had to carefully scrap off. The bottom part of the blade was in-crusted with mineral build up that was preventing the seal. I decided to lubricate and re install old seals and parts. It has not leaked since doing this. So yes I agree with you conclusion and would try the CRL first, if it does not work removing and cleaning the seals and parts was no a difficult job.