Upstairs Shower Repair, Now Replacement/Upgrade

So the most recent project for our house has been fixing a bad hot water valve on the upstairs shower, that has been progressively getting worse each day. Of course I jinxed myself by thinking this was going to be a simple valve replacement and we'd be good to go. So to my last knowledge the bathroom was last remodeled in the 1950's sometime. This is how the shower looks currently, luckily there is a back access panel in the closet next to the shower where i can get to the pipes and such.

So I start by removing the handle from the valve stem and check it out, I then use a shower wrench set and try to unscrew the valve. After working at it and trying to unscrew this for about 15 minutes I decide to look at the back panel and see if it can see whats going on, maybe its severely corroded.

I look and see that the part of the valve seat that the wrench is on the the main body, its appearing as if the valve does not come out. So at this point I am out of ideas as there is now where else I can unscrew this valve at. So I reach out and posted on the do it yourself forums looking for some insight from others as to what the next step is here.

So the general consensus from that post was complete replacement was the best option, even more so since I had complete access to the valve body from the access panel. So of course Home Depot and Lowe's don't have any of the valve bodies in stock. So since I had to order the parts in, I decided to upgrade the system to a 3 handle system versus the 2 handle system. The 3 handle looks more elegant and you don't have the pull up on the faucet. 
So this is what I decided on and ordered: 

• 3 Handle Valve System
• 3 Handle Shower Trim Set

The items arrived as expected now we need to get time after work to remove the old fixture and get the new one in. So I got the box opened and this is what we ended up with

So the first thing that I did was remove the old valve system, so using a pipe wrench and some WD40 I managed to get it out.

So now the the old valve system is out, I looked and see that the previous person sweat the valve body fitting right onto the threaded end of the supply pipe!

So with that being the case and also with the supply pipes being bend by the original plumber to fit where he wanted instead of using fitting to get the pipes where they need to be, I decided to use PEX to the new body. So I got the PEX fittings installed on the new valve body and sweat the adapters onto the existing copper lines. Everything with that was going good until I turned on the water to test out the fittings and the cold water was spraying like geyser. So I removed the fitting and tried again, and again, and again, with the pipes being bend as they were it was impossible to find a smooth straight inch to sweat the adapter onto. So I decided to use a street adapter and sweat it directly into the tee and low and behold it was good to go. So after that was taken care of I drilled the hole for the diverter stem and got the valve body into place and the handles attached to support to body. I then got the new faucet pipes into place and the nipple in extending into the tub. At this point I start to look to see how to attach the shower pipe and see that the existing brass pipe is not going to work as its too big and also not going to reach the new body. So I cut and put in a new shower supply pipe.

So once all the pipes were hooked up it was time to tighten the handles, put the diverter handle on, and put the faucet on as well. Once that was done I turned on the water once again and woo it worked and didn't leak any this time. So I got things cleaned up and put some caulk around the needed areas and we are good to go finally. Funny how a supposedly $20 valve replacement turned into a project like this