Well done Marley and again especially to Barry for the excellent teamwork – what a lovely bloke.
Wow Marley you have certainly cleaned up those parts nicely.
I am sorry that I seem to be the only person with some idea of the components, but as I said before to my knowledge nobody has ever gone that far!
Marley I just cant imagine how you got that out (female) part as you refer to, what is underneath? Is it just the plastic tank and was there a rubber sealing washer underneath? Do you think the outside thread on that (female) part screws into a plastic thread within the base at the bottom of the tank – if not, then I imagine that it screws into the bottom part of the brass valve body which is under the plastic tank .
If so, then my earliest suspicions may be correct ( which is why I mentioned a warning in an earlier response about using too much force trying to remove the opening top part of the water valve and disturbing the seal at the bottom of the tank.
I am thinking that the (female) part that you have removed is the top part of what I am going to call the valve body. I would imagine that underneath the tank is the bottom part of the valve body. there is probably a rubber washer on top of the bottom part of the valve body (if it wasn’t inside the base of the tank) which seals against the tank and when the top part of the valve body screws inside the bottom part they tighten the washer against the base of the tank and form a water tight seal.
Not sure what to recommend how to get the top and bottom parts of the Water Valve Body back together and probably a good idea to use a sealant – there are some good ones about now that can even be used wet or under water. It would probably be a two person job with someone holding the bottom part in place from underneath – from memory long ago there may be some slots that will help with this.
Maybe the part that you have removed from the bottom of the tank could then be screwed into place using the opening top part of the water valve – using the slots to turn it and tighten the top part of the water valve into the bottom part and tighten to seal against the washer……I imagine that the sealant will hold it in place and a well lubricated thread on the opening part will allow only that to unscrew (open).
I am hoping that I am completely wrong in my thoughts and that you don’t have anything like the problem that I think.
Don’t forget to push some tight fitting pipe ( I used 20mm blue water pipe) into the bottom of the valve underneath and that will stop dirt/debri getting in and fusing the threads together in the future.
Best wishes,
Fred