How to disconnect the supply line from these older bathroom faucets?

Question

Typically removing/replacing the supply lines is done by simply loosening a bolt attached to the intakes as shown here:

However in my original seventies bathroom faucets they do not have a separable connection. It seems there are two choices:

1. Remove the entire assembly at the wall
2. Cut the braided cable at the spot that the nut would be in a newer arrangement.

I fear the second choice will end up with water all over the place. Actually I fear the first option will as well. Yes I could turn off the main water to the house, but I'm curious if there were a more surgical way to do this?

There will likely be a follow-on here: how to connect a new supply line, given there is no bolted connection location..

Answer 1

The "integrated valve and flex hose" (as it appears to be) has to be removed and replaced with a not-brain-dead shutoff valve. That new shutoff valve will provide a place to connect a normal supply line and solve your follow-on question. Have the sense to get a 1/4 turn shutoff, they do a much better job of being open for years and shutting off when needed than multi-turn stop valves do. They hardly even cost more, these days.

If there's no intermediate shutoff other than the main, that means shutting off water at the main.

If you then open high and low faucets so that most of the water in the pipes can go into the drain at the low faucets, (air flows in at the high faucets) there should be minimal mess when you remove the brain-dead stop-valves with odd corrugated flex lines fused to them.

Answer 2

Those shutoffs need to be replaced.

The hard part is getting new ones on your existing pipe. If you’re really lucky, there’s a threaded connection between the house copper and the old shutoff. Try cracking it with two big wrenches. (Don’t twist the house copper.)

Failing that, cut back as little of the 1/2” copper as possible, clean it up, and see if you can get a compression fitting to not leak. Failing that, you can solder, but that’s usually a pain. Forget sharkbite anything, as it relies on a pristine pipe.