How to get the washer off this faucet?

Question

I managed to pull off the handles based on other instructions, but now I'm stuck. I'm supposed to change washer to fix the leak, but I don’t see a washer. Where do I go from here?

Answer 1

You'll have to pull the hot & cold water stems out - that's the part under the white gears (which connect the removed handles to the stem).

Turn the water off, either below the sink or to the whole house if you cannot find a shut off for just this faucet

Carefully remove the 2 Phillips head screws in the center of the white gears. Use extreme care for the cold water (on the right) since that screw head is already starting to strip out. Another slip or two and you could round out the cross enough make it almost impossible to get the screw out.

Once the screws are removed, pull the white gears off, noting which way they come off - they're keyed on the bottom side, then pull the metal stems, below. You'll find washers on the stems, and these are the ones you're looking to replace.

I'd strongly suggest replacing the screw on the cold water tap to ensure that it's easy to remove the next time someone (possibly future you) needs to remove this. Between this removal and reinstallation, that screw head could easily get totally rounded out. For the very small price of a replacement screw, it's cheap insurance against that happening. Might as well replace both at the same time - you'll probably find them in pairs when you go to buy them, anyway.