so I can't get under the cistern to replace any of the "uprights" without breaking away all the tiles Would I have to turn off the water before I turned the "lid" and removed the valve? I then used a pencil to poke down the same hole and wiggle the small blue lever until it happily sprung back cleanly again.

It's 2014 and the problem still occurs and WD 40 still works, but just make sure you have a good look at the layout of the little plastic box before you take it apart!A dual flush, cable operated Macdee Dump valve that can fit in existing Macdee brackets as well as fit cisterns with a 1. this is the cistern with the top off and you can see where the wire comes through and goes between those 2 white bits of plastic(which are cylindrical) but i can't work out how it holds it together? This is a direct replacement for the old 208 valve and the original AFV40100/AFV40200 flush valves fitted in the macdee concealed cistern and will fit straight on the existing cradle without having to dismantle the cistern. I can't imagine the bolt is threaded into the bowl directly though - is there a plastic fitting glued to the base unit perhaps?

In your first picture there is a big white bit and a big blue bit, you need to replace the big white bit, there is a seal at the bottom which has perished.Two days ago the cistern stopped filling completely and no amount of button-jiggling (bar one or two occasions) seems to bring it back.

When I got the valve off I looked at the seal itself which seemed to be very clean and pliable but it was covered in bubbles which I thought was a bit odd. I have tried to remove the this valve but it is so fixed, I am reluctant to force it in case I damage it. what I find a bit odd is the fact that the plunger doesn't kick in to fill it back up as on the old "ball" cisterns the more the level dropped the more it would put back in.

Next job - try and figure out how these units can be disconnected from the cistern - can't see any obvious way to do it yet.

just had the exact same thing, kept taking the flush unit out, put it back in and it worked, just once tho then back to square one, lubing the plunger with WD40 works. When I said "press the bar on the side", in your case this refers to the blue tab close to the cistern lid, as Ayjay says, easily removable. Inspect the large rubber washer on the base, has it fallen off; is it caked in limescale or other crud; inspect (for limescale) the edges of the base that has remained in the cistern.which looked to have identical fittings, could I replace just the valve that I removed with another version (rather than the base as well, as if that needed replacing I wouldn't bother), are the bases on them a universal fit? The unit is a Macdee AFV40100 flush valve - I can't see any markings on the inlet side, so I don't know who the manufacturer of that is - I assume the same. I simply unclipped the little plastic box from the underside of the flush button, and squirted a generous glug of WD40 into the box through the hole that the flush plunger pokes into.