Toilets, Sinks, Showers, Tubs and Disposals - Bath tub stopper removal

I searched but could not find an answer.

When we had a liner put in our bath tub, they replaced the stopper with one that goes up and down and spins freely in both directions. There seems to be a clog in there and I can not figure out how to remove the stopper to get at the clog. There is no lever involved, you push down and pull up at the drain itself by grabbing the knob on top of the stopper. The knob seems to be one piece with the stopper. It does not screw off.

Any help in removing this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony

I searched the shopping pages on this site to see if I could find a stopper like the one you discribed.

http://www.centralbrass.com/documents/specsheets/S1644D.pdf

According to this picture there should be a screw in the middle of the stopper handle. If this isnt the type you have you might be able to search the rest of the site to find one like yours.

Good Luck and post back

It's similar but there is no screw in the knob on top of the stopper. The knob and the stopper appears to be one molded piece.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to remove this??

The stopper is one piece that just spins and spins. I can not figure out how to remove this and the water is barely draining. I snaked the pipes through the overflow and they are completely clean. The only place a blockage could be is under the stopper.

Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tony

There may be a set screw up under the top of the stopper.
Check there. It has to come off and out some way.
Good Luck!
Mike

The top unscrews, hold the lager part of the stopper and turn off the top side of it, under this you should see a slot for screwdriver.

Hey Plumber 2000,

You were right. I figured this out the hardway by myself last night. I didn't see your post until this morning. I had tried what you suggested but it wouldn't budge. So I unscrewed the main rod from the cross bars with a pair of curved needle nose pliers. I had to bend it a bit to get in there. Once I got it out I was able to put it in a vice and get the whole thing apart. When they put the tub liner in he must have rally cranked this on. Then I cleaned a ton of hair and junk out of the drain. Works great now.

For the record, this was a Watco Nufit tub strainer body with a push pull stopper. Also, under the top of the stopper, the piece of the stopper going down over the rod that screws in to the cross bars, has 2 flat sides on it. You could slide a wrench under the stopper onto the 2 flat sides and then use pliers wrapped in a rag to unscrew the knob. Thne use a screwdriver to back this out which allows complete access to the strainer.

Thanks, and I'm glad this is over. It should have been easy, but oh well.

Tony

Your conversation with tbano (who had the exact same problem as I) saved me hours of frustration and, possibly, a broken tub drain if I had gotten frustrated enough!

Thank you for sharing your expertise!

This is an awsome website and is now in my Favorites in the folder marked "Home Maintainance"!

My son's bathroom drain was clogged and the piper hair desolver wasn't doing the trick. Had to get in there with a hanger to pull out the hair from the drain opening and other gunk - yuck. If not for this post who knows what I would have done to that stopper. Got it off in just a few seconds based on a few tid bits of information on this thread. Cleaned out the clog and I'm back in business.

Thanks Gents...

I am a married woman with a husband that is the not so handy kind of guy. he has no knowledge of around the home repairs so I am constantly doing them myself and actually get a nice sense of worth from completing the task. Any how, our tub upstairs has been clogged for some time. We never use it. Only guests do when they come over so I really wasn't in a hurry to fix the problem. I use to work at a local plumbing company as their bookkeeper so I do have some knowledge in plumbing repairs that I had picked up over the years and thought I can probably so this. I had my husband try this morning and he said all it keeps doing is spinning. I decided to get on here and see what I could find and this was everything that I needed! I still had to do it even though my hubby had directions from this site but..... It worked out great. I read what was wriiten and was able to get the stopper out and get all the gunk out of the drain! Thanks so much for all the helpful advice! And remember women are just as good as men if not better! LOL!!!! Thanks again!

I have the same stopper as mentioned in this forum, but am unable to find any screw. I have removed the knob on the top, but cannot find a screw now, any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have the same problem. It's a push/pull model. The top screws off, and there is no screw underneath. The central shaft, to which the bottom piece of the stopper is still attached, seems to have a slight lip at the top of it. Making it larger than the opening of the bottom piece of the stopper. So, it doesn't look like the bottom piece could slide/screw over and off of the shaft because of the shaft's larger width at the top. Any ideas?

When you say 'push/pull' do you actually mean the type that you have to give it a slight twist to either make it stay up there, or to drop back down? And that this is NOT the kind you step on with your foot to close and open?

If so, these type of stoppers come in two varieties that I have seen. One has a set screw just under the stopper that locks the stopper to the shaft. The other kind has no set screw. You simply unscrew the stopper off the shaft. Trouble is, sometimes that knurled top part you grab unscrews instead of the whole thing. Screw it back on, tight. Now try to unscrew it again. Sometimnes the whole thing will now unscrew. If that does not work, you have to raise up the stopper about 1/8 inch (from the all the way down, stopper position) and get a channel locks around the whole thing (not the cap part on top that you grab), protect the rim with a rag if you wish, and then unscrew it. It unscrews the normal CCW direction.

Do not do this procedure unless you have confirmed for a fact that you have the stopper I am describing in my center paragraph, from line 3 down.

You have to step on it to close it, and pull it straight up to have it remain in an open, raised position. No twisting needed for either action.

I have not had to really deal with servicing these -yet. Sorry. If nobody else helps you here, you'd think someone at big box store can tell you how. At my big box store employees will even open packages to analyze stuff for you if that is what it takes.

thanks for your posts. i appreciate it. i guess i'll head out to home depot and give that a go then.
as soon as federer and djokovic wrap it up!

Good luck, on all fronts. And post back.

No luck at the hardware store. Several discussions with staff and a random shopper, re-enactments with drains which did not operate like mine, only to receive the same advice: drano, drano, drano.

Massive amounts of drano later, back in business.

Sorry, no insights on how to remove this particular kind of stopper to pass on.

Thanks though for living up to promise and reporting back. If everyone would do that we might ALL learn something.

I have a Watco Push-Pull drain in my bathtub. To clean out the drain, I had to follow a two-step process.

The first step was to remove the knob on top of the drain plug. This is done by holding the drain plug with one hand and unscrewing (counter clockwise) the knob. If the knob is on really tightly, a pair of pliers can be used to grip it. Make sure you protect the knob by taping the jaws of the pliers with masking tape or adhesive tape before using them.

Once the knob is removed, you should see the top of a bolt with a square hole in it. This needs to be unscrewed to remove the drain plug. You could use a screwdriver placed into the hole diagonally to unscrew the bolt (counter clockwise). The screwdriver should be about a 3/8-inch flat blade. You can also use a valve seat removal tool that has a square end on one end. (The other end has a hexagonal end.)

Once the bolt is unscrewed, the drain plug can be lifted out and the drain cleaned. After removing the hair and other material, you can use a plunger to further clean out the drain. There should be no need to use a chemical drain cleaner.

When the drain is clean, replace the drain plug and tighter the bolt with a screwdriver or valve seat tool (tighten clockwise). Then replace the knob on top of the drain plug. Tighten it clockwise just finger tight.

I hope this helps. It took me a while to figure it out.

To remove the one piece Watco drain plug.
(The one without the screw at the top)

Just pull up on the plug and at the same time turn in an anticlockwise direction.
(About 4-5 turns removed ours)

To replace push down on the plug and at the same time turn clockwise.

Hope this helps.

Push down and turn to left until you can pull the plug out. Then reverse direction when you want to put back in (remember push it down when turning).
Chris


I searched but could not find an answer.

When we had a liner put in our bath tub, they replaced the stopper with one that goes up and down and spins freely in both directions. There seems to be a clog in there and I can not figure out how to remove the stopper to get at the clog. There is no lever involved, you push down and pull up at the drain itself by grabbing the knob on top of the stopper. The knob seems to be one piece with the stopper. It does not screw off.

Any help in removing this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony

I never could get ours out. I finally got tweezers and a flashlight to get everything out. Very tedious work, but such an improvement in the water drainage.

Many thanks to all of you. I just moved into a new apartment and the tub was already clogged. I couldn't get the maintenance man here and I was getting really frustrated. :wall: Thanks to this thread, I was able to remove the plug and unclog the tub myself. It was really gross. I think I'll deliver the results to my leasing office. :cheshire:

I searched but could not find an answer.

When we had a liner put in our bath tub, they replaced the stopper with one that goes up and down and spins freely in both directions. There seems to be a clog in there and I can not figure out how to remove the stopper to get at the clog. There is no lever involved, you push down and pull up at the drain itself by grabbing the knob on top of the stopper. The knob seems to be one piece with the stopper. It does not screw off.

Any help in removing this would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Tony

I just did this about 10 minutes ago. This is way EASIER than it seems. It only took me about 2 hours to figure out.

There is a rod inside that goes up through the plug to the knob on the top. I could remove the knob no problem but the plug remained. This is what I figured out.

The Rod has a cross piece like a 'T' in inside of a tube with about 1/4 of it cut out. If you pull the plug out where you can see inside, you'll see the 'T' above the notch. The trick is to leave the knob on the top. use it to turn the plug. you have to hold the whole thing about half way out where it hooks on that notch. ( I wish I could draw a picture of it. )

Short version...

Hold the knob half way up so the bar stays in the notch. Then turn it lefty loosey. No tools required.

This took me 2 hours to figure out and I just went back in there and did it again with NO tools. Easy.

Good Luck.

PS: I'm writing this in my 'gotcha' book inside the closet where the AC unit is so I won't forget.

Thank you all for the information. I never would have figured this one out on my own, and other online sources didn't cover the particular type of drain that I had. I figured I had a simple hair clog, as I have long hair, and there is no screen or anything to catch it.

For the record: It is a Watco push-pull drain--the kind with the two flat sides on the rod under the stopper. Though that was impossible to tell before I actually started unscrewing it! There wasn't even enough space to get my fingers under there to feel that there were flat sides. Since everything else had failed, I decided to hope that they were there and proceed.

There wasn't enough space to get pliers or an adjustable wrench in there either. Finally, I dug out the box-end wrenches, and did a lot of experimenting and wiggling around with them until the 9/16 wrench caught on something and it moved. It was only then that I was able to unscrew the stopper assembly.

When I finally got it off, I found a cross-shaped metal piece that prevented me from digging out the hair clog! Fortunately, I had an old dental probe/scraper thingie that I was able to stick deep in the drain and fish out the hair clumps. It still ran very slowly, but I used the plunger for a bit, and now it's running well.


I'm truly shocked at what a remarkably bad design this drain is!

Cleaning hair clumps out of the drain is just ordinary maintenance, and should be easy for virtually anybody to do with simple tools. Not everybody has a full set of box-end wrenches and a dental pick.

I shudder to think of how much Drano has been dumped down these drains to take care of what is a simple physical clog. Drano has its place, of course, but it is horribly caustic and dangerous, and bad for old pipes like the ones in my building.

And I shudder to think of how many unnecessary plumber calls have been made by people who didn't succeed in figuring this out. (Maybe Watco is in cahoots with the plumbers!)

Shame on Watco for making these lousy drain assemblies, and shame on whoever has installed them!

We have a watco-when it usedto plug, I used a plunger--it
worked fine---fill tub w/warm water & plunge.
Now I run hot water w/ drain open for about 2 minutes
every 3-4 days--Works great............

I can't figure it out:wall: :wall: . . . I've tried pushing and pulling the stopper. I've taken off the knob only to find a curved topped metal thing. . . I've tried twisting it with a needle nose. I've tried everything I can thin of and I cannot get it out. :confused:

Eventually I had to pull some of the hair out with a blade from a gerber knife. . . but I can't get anymore out and the drain is still clogged. I can see a little bit of the hair,k but cannot reach it with my gerber. . . can anyone help me get this out?

Thanks
:confused:
Michelle

Why don't you plug the drain overflow ( under that round metal plate above the drain ) w/ a wet rag & use a plunger. leave the knob off

It was very simple, but different from the other types indicate. I have the type that you push and pull to open and close. It spins freely in both directions. The small piece on the top screws off and exposes another metal piece with no screw. After I unscrewed the small top piece, I pushed the stopper part back down. This gives access to the bigger metal piece. I twisted it off and removed the stopper piece with it. I was elated, until I saw the buildup that I now have to go and deal with. Thank you everyone. Now for cleaning...:confused:

If you will open drain & open hot water ( wide open ) & let it run for a few minutes--at least twice a week--you will have
less problem in future
Good luck................

I have read through this tread trying to figure out a solution to my problem. I have a stopper that spins freely and you turn it lift it or plug it. However, like most people from this thread can not remove the darn thing to clean out a stoppage from hair. I do have a screw on the underside of the stopper, however, the phillips head screw head is stripped. Any ideas? Taking a shower today sure would be nice :D

I have been wrestling with a tub drain for most of a week now trying to figure out how to remove the stopper and unclog hair from the drain. I came across this post and it gave me inspiration. Let me describe what I have, found and how I fixed it,as it differs a bit from the above. (OK, my wife just said I have been jacking with it for about a month) :-)

This is a 6 year old house with builders grade everything, Delta faucets, but there is no manufacturer name stamped on the tub drain. The drain plug lifts up, you spin in to a spot where it stays up and will drain, but all you do is spin it a little more, either direction and it falls on it's own weight and stops the drain for filling the tub.

Here is how I got it off.....I held the large diameter of the stopper with large pliers and twisted the smaller knurled piece you grab with your fingers and it came right off. It does not screw to the drain plug, just a press fit.

Looking at what that exposed was for lack of better words, a keyway, something like a half moon on one side of center. I placed a small flat blade screwdriver in the keyway and turned CCW. As long as I had the stopper in the raised position, it would just spin, but drop it to the closed position and that allowed the screwdriver to engage the shaft it spun on and continuing to turn CCW unscrewed the short shaft from what I call the cross-hair in the drain. What I held i my hand was the large sopper with a short shaft with threads on the bottom end.

OK, so at this time I feel really stupid....this thing has been taxing my manhood for way too long and I was getting tired of stepping out of an ankle deep shower that drained slowly.

Suffice it to say, 3 minutes later the hair clog was removed and the whole thing put back together and working.

I agree as some have written above, way too hard to figure out, but once you have it, you are golden!

I hope my explanation helps someone. I was so impressed with this forum that I went and registered so I could reply here.

Happy Dave DIY'er!

:)

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this post!!!!!
:)
Isnt it always a simple fix that just drives you mad for a while??


THANKS!

Short version...

Hold the knob half way up so the bar stays in the notch. Then turn it lefty loosey. No tools required.

This took me 2 hours to figure out and I just went back in there and did it again with NO tools. Easy.


Thank you so much. Had a plumber in last year to fix a slow drain [took an hour or more to drain the bath] and a month later had the same problem. I have been trying off and on since to remove the drain stopper to have a go at the clog. Thanks to you guys I no longer have to pay the plumber for this problem. Thanks a million!!!!!

:)
Isnt it always a simple fix that just drives you mad for a while??
THANKS!

After others living here with teenagers for 7 years, and our one, this is the grossest thing I have ever done. When the plug finally came out, it was about 7 inches long by 1", and stunk like sewage (not grey water, sewage).

I have plumbed and snaked actual sewage lines before in homes and almost fallen into a full septic tank before, and this is the thing that brought me closest to throwing up.

Anyway, thanks so much for the info. After a full year and many trips to plumbing stores, its ridiculous how easy this was. As someone mentioned earlier, disturbing how many chemicals have gone down that drain trying to do what I did in 15 mins after reading here.

I've read through all of these posts thouroughly, but maybe I'm missing something...

My roommate and I both have long hair clogging the drain in our apartment (we've only been here a few weeks and it's already backed up!) and we need to fix the problem stat!

Our push-pull stopper (unsure of the brand) does not come apart into two pieces and will not twist out either pulled up or pushed down. I'm really struggling with this and it needs to be done ASAP! I'm not really good with tools or complex home improvement, but any help you may be able to give would be great! Thank you all!

Stat--sounds like hospital talk.......
there should be a round piece of metal above drain with a opening at the bottom edge-jamb a wet rag up into slot.
Get a plunger ( plumbers helper ) Fill bathtub with 3-4 " of water & plunge over top of drain-suction will pull up drain plug.
Keep at it --you should see hair, etc coming up from drain.
Just my triage......................

I am having no luck at all in finding any information as to go about removeing this drain assembly. I need to remove the whole stopper thing to have it replaced. It is one of those you push with your toe to close and open. There is no name on the top. The top comes off and there is the stopper shaft with white plastic around the outside that sliders down when you push it down. It will no longer stay closed to keep water in the tub. Please if anyone can help my 2 yr old son misses his bath's as he hates showers!! LOL:cheshire:

Yippee! Thanks to all of your wonderful help, I got the bath tub stopper OUT!
First use a flashlight to see better in the drain. Then..
Get needle nose pliers and grab the main shaft with the needle nose pliers.
Twist the top of the stopper with the knob-on top of the stopper.
(The knob & the flat flange is all one piece.
There is a lip beneath the flat flange that fits over the shaft.)
Unscrew it clockwise, while holding the shaft with the pliers.
*This is why it's best to use a flashlight, so you can see everything.
Remove all the hair, etc. with the needle nose pliers. Clean out the drain.
Return the stopper back into the shaft, screw it back in opposite the way you removed it.
Presto! All finished and drain is draining like a champ!
My hubby will be surprised!
Hugs to all that helped me!
cd48x

Hello everyone...I really need some help.

I have the lift and turn drain and i manage to get the small knob off the top and I don't see any space to put the screw driver in...it's just flat in that little hole...it's driving me crazy:madhell: ...and there's no screw under the drain...

any help would be great....

I have a Watco stopper without a screw in the middle of the handle post. It is the kind of stopper you must push down and pull up manually. It will not lock in the up position even if you twist it. I was able to easily unscrew a decorative cover on the top of the stopper to reveal a post that the stopper rides on. I just used a pair of pliars to unscrew the post directly. Too bad I can't post pictures here.

Thanks for all the great posts! They gave me the inspiration to keep trying. I will explain how ours worked. This is a Kohler lift and turn model circa 1999. There is a brass pin that has the stopper and pull knob attached to it. On that brass pin is a small brass "nub" that slides into a slot in the drain allowing the stopper to drop and seal the drain under it's own weight. To open remove the stopper, first remove the knob by turning it counter-clockwise with the stopper in the closed position. Before removing the knob completely, pull up on the stopper so that you can get hold of the stopper itself once the knob is removed completely. Once the pull knob is removed, allow the stopper to go back down but only enough for the "nub" to rest down against the slot which will allow you to grasp the stopper and turn it counter-clockwise as well. I did mine with no tools at all. Good luck all.

I too have the Watco push pull drain. Thus far I havent seen anything here that works on my drain. I have felt under the stopper and noticed that there is a rod with 2 flat spots. I put a 9/16ths wrench on it and was only successful in getting the knob removed. Underneath the knob is a metal pin. Its flat on top and underneath of that is a groove that goes around the pin. There is no screws or set screws whatsoever that I can see. It also appears that there is a washer that is round on the outside and appears to have a "D" cut into the inside of the washer. This corresponds to a slit underneath the flat head of the pin. I was told to pry it off but the washer wont slide in the path. And this also appears to be what is holding the stopper on to the shaft. Someone told me there was aset screw...none that I can find. ANyone have any ideas how to get this apart? I appreciate the help..

I found my Watco drain stopper to be a "lift & turn" closure (below). After unscrewing the knob (#1), and reading other notes here, I realized that I had post (#2) that I could unscrew with a wrench, after pushing the stopper down. The messy cleanup was easy after that. Thanks.

http://home.comcast.net/%7Ej-jlohr/WatcoDrain.JPGhttp://www.watcomfg.com/Watco/Schedule40/915-916-917hafkts.pdfhttp://www.watcomfg.com/Watco/Schedule40/915-916-917hafkts.pdf

Well I'll be......................I can't believe there was a screw there all this time and I never saw it.

Thanks.

Beer 4U2

Hi, thanks to this forum I was able to disassemble my watco drain stopper and clear the nastiness inside. I decided to photograph the assembly to hopefully aid in the descriptions others have given.

There are three pieces to the drain. From left to right, they are the stopper, the bolt and the knob.

The stopper slides onto the bolt, and the knob screws into the stopper.
<a href="http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/heretics_bane/?action=view&current=disassembled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/heretics_bane/disassembled.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width="320" height="240"></a>

The bolt, with the stopper attached, screws into this area in the bathtub:
<a href="http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/heretics_bane/?action=view&current=Drain.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/heretics_bane/Drain.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width="320" height="240"></a>

After unscrewing the knob to expose the bolt, this is what it should look like. Also, after you've cleaned the drain, this should be what it looks like before you screw the knob back on.
<a href="http://s13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/heretics_bane/?action=view&current=Assembled.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a265/heretics_bane/Assembled.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width="320" height="240"></a>
Step one, unscrew the knob to expose the bolt.
Step two, slide the stopper down to give you access to the bolt.
Step three, use pliers to unscrew the bolt from the bathtub. The bolt is not round, there is a flat side you you can use for leverage if you can get up under the top of the bolt.
Step four, clean drain.
Step five, with stopper attached to bolt, screw bolt back into bathtub.
Step six, screw knob back into stopper.

That should be it. I know my bathtub isn't the cleanest, but hopefully these photos will help someone visualize the procedure.

The top unscrews, hold the lager part of the stopper and turn off the top side of it, under this you should see a slot for screwdriver.

Thanks plumber 2000. I couldn't figure out how it came out. Thanks to you it was so simple. Got the clog out and all is well.