How do you snake a kitchen sink & how to remove a corroded steel nipple when only 1/4" sticks out?

Hi Vic,

You were wholly correct - the nipple was badly rusted - but even so, as you predicted, it certainly would not crush easily.

I snapped this picture of my sister's sink, showing WHY it was impossible to run a snake through the top, without removing the strainer basket apparatus:

My Easter temporary repair was badly leaking, so much that she had placed a bowl but it still allowed the pipes to leak:

There was a twist fitting at the top of each sink, which was easy to remove with a pair of curved locking pliers:

With the two sink compression fittings off, the plumbing just fell out of the nipple (it was NOT twisted into the nipple!).

Applying penetrating oil was probably too little too late, as it did absolutely nothing - even after banging for 10 minutes, which only served to loosen up crud which piled up below:

A closeup shows there was potentially more nipple sticking out than I at first thought - due to a corroded faceplate:

The faceplate would not spin off, but it peeled off easily. Now I could finally see WHAT the nipple was screwed into:

Applying heat sounds like a good idea, but, in reality, it was a bad idea as the wood started burning. I couldn't figure HOW to apply heat to JUST the pipe that the nipple was screwed into!

Now it was time to twist the nipple off. I lined up my curved jaw pliers and my pipe wrenches, and, one by one, they each failed:

This fancy offset pipe wrench was the worst disappointment of all! It wouldn't bite in the least, no matter what I tried. It just kept slipping. I realized at that point that it did NOT have serrated jaws. The jaws are perfectly smooth. Which is useless!

This curved-jaw vise grip also failed its promise. It wouldn't stay on as I twisted, no matter how hard I clamped it down on the nipple:

So, it was back to the basic pipe wrenches! I lined them up, starting from the smallest to the largest - to try to remove the recalcitrant nipple:

The smallest pipe wrench fit and bit beautifully; but lying on my back, pushing UP with the wrench (it would not fit on the left side, pushing down), was a dismal failure. Nothing budged.

The third pipe wrench size fit perfectly - but again - it would only fit on the right side, which necessitated lying on my back and pushing upward to try to spin the 1960s rusted-on nipple off:

I banged. I pushed. I swore. I banged and pushed s'more. I failed:

After an hour or more of getting nowhere, I finally decided to listen to your suggestions and to move on to plan "B", which was to use the Fernco fitting:

Of course, the Fernco fitting necessitated cutting off the female threaded coupling that was supposed to be threaded onto the male nipple:

At this point, I belatedly realized that, even with a trunk chock full of tools, I had forgotten to bring a hacksaw, and, my sister had no tools that would have done me any good. So, I fabricated a quick jig out of an angle grinder & some nearby brick ornamental work - which allowed me to spin the pipe into the stationary angle grinder - and I was able to sand down the rough edges on the concrete (which worked surprisingly well!):

I had only PVC cement with me, so I headed off to the hardware store to pick up ABC cement, which I used to glue the new

Finally, I wiggled it all together, and, tested it with a sink full of water - and while it looks like hell, it didn't leak anymore (which was the primary constraint). I'm not sure how long this will last (I really preferred to put a new nipple on), but, as Oren is fond of saying, "It looks OK from way out here":

I DO have some questions - but this post is long enough that I will put them in a separate post.

In hindsight, chasing the threads is probably the best idea.

But, I did not have a die, and, well, none of the rental shops I had called yesterday had the internal pipe wrench so I doubt they'd have a 1.5 inch pipe die.

Out of curiosity, had I bought a pipe die, should it have been this $275 setup I just found by googling?

RIDGID Pipe Threading Head, 1 1/2 In, RH, Alloy

Along with this handle:

Which would have cost about $275 ... or is there a cheaper way to re-thread 1.5 inch steel nipples?

UPDATE & QUESTIONS:

Q: How does one snake a kitchen sink? A: In general, you don't; however, you 'can' remove the basket from underneath the sink, and then snake - or - you can open up the fittings at the P-Trap and snake from there if you want.

Q: Do you suggest larger-diameter plastic "J" pipes with a cleanout? A: The pipes are already as large as can be, although mine were cheap Home Depot style - so a plumber might use thicker grade pipe. The cleanout would be nice - but I didn't see any at Home Depot with the cleanout.

Q: What TOOL spins off a 1.5" diameter nipple when only 1/4" sticks out? A: An internal pipe wrench might work - but the problem will STILL be you need an awfully huge amount of leverage - which you'll likely just not have. In my case, there actually was enough room to get the pipe wrench on the nipple, once I peeled off the faceplate, but even with a pipe wrench, WD-40, and a propane torch, the nipple would not budge. I doubt the internal pipe wrench will give me any more leverage.

Q: Can a compression fitting attach to the corroded 1/4" steel nipple? A: No, but a Fernco fitting will work just fine (and it did).

KEY QUESTION:

Since the proper way to fix this was likely either to chase the threads, or to replace the nipple, the key related question regarding why I failed to remove the nipple, is:

Q1: How do you get enough leverage to remove the nipple anyway?

You have no idea what you are doing, not even mastery of the basic vocabulary ....

You ask nonsensical questions, sometimes you answer them yourself but often incorrectly. You make false assumptions & arrival at illogical conclusions.

You seem as though you MIGHT be learning some things but it's hard to tell.

You do take good photos, even if the descriptions & techniques make no sense. You post them to A.H.R as if they represent great discoveries.... interesting indeed.

You post so many questions perhaps a unique numbering system is in order.

You may not be very experienced or knowledgeable but you sure are persistent. Must fall under the heading of "too stupid to know that you don't know".

yeah, I think there's a biblical thing about that.

Suggestion.. research & read about your repairs post less, read more, you'll learn quicker

Hint: You're asking the wrong questions.

That's good. It's just another joint to leak or fail. Removing the P-trap is child's play, and when you're there you can get a snake into the stub and waste line. Despite you sister's experience with eggshells in the trap, most stoppages I've seen are in that stub or below at a turn. See the sludge in there? Probably the most horizontal waste pipe in the house.

They call all fittings with plastic/nylon washers compression fittings now, because they call the connecting nut a compression nut and it compresses the washer to make a seal. So I don't think that term is reserved for tubing.

Strength mainly. If you could get under the cabinet floor to put some blocks there to brace the floor, you could use a jack on the wrench. Discretion needed Don't want to break anything. Since you won't be reusing the threads hitting the stub head-on with a hammer repeatedly can help break up the dope or rust keeping it frozen in.. Again, discretion needed. If it's really a cast iron T don't hammer. All I've seen is steel pipe/T's for sink lines. If the T shows movement, don't hammer. And there's always the danger of causing one of the other T joints to leak even just wrenching unless you can get an opposing wrench on the T, which you can't do without opening the wall. I recommend just staying with the Fernco.

That's about it. For the smaller sizes, up to 3/4" you could a solid hex die for maybe 20 bucks. But 1 1/2" is big bucks. Unless you're doing a lot of threading, IOW it's your job, forget about buying pipe threading tools. See if you can rent or borrow. It would be much cheaper to have a plumber come in than what you'll end up paying for dies. Plug "pipe die' into eBay for an idea of the different types. I re-piped my last house about 30 years ago using a non-ratcheting Rigid set that I borrowed from my uncle. I remember pricing them then and they were expensive. Still are. But that was all 1/2" and 3/4" and I don't remember how big that set went. Did bigger pipe on a thread cutting machine in the steel mills. Don't remember how big those went either. I might re-pipe the galvanized steel pipe in this house but will look into PEX first. If I go with galvanized I'll buy a cheap kit, You can get them for 50 bucks for 1/2' and 3/4" Not many cuts, and if it threads maybe 20 ends before the dies wear out, that's enough. I did notice this set on eBay that has 1 1/2".

Looks like you did a good job to me.

Oh, except maybe for:

2 - If not, is there a cleanout in the bottom?

No & No.

I didn't change the P-trap pipe, as I was afraid of changing the geometry too much (I'm inexperienced).

You might notice that even slicing off only 2 inches of pipe changed the geometry enough that it's not really a perfectly straight shot into the Fernco.

Here's a full-size picture showing a slight bulge at the Fernco itself:

My lesson learned was that, in addition to pipe & PVC cement, I was cursing myself in that I should have bought a few elbows of various angles instead of just the one 45° elbow because just slicing off a tiny bit changed the geometry alone.

Meanwhile, my sister was asking me why it was taking so long to simply remove the nipple ... (she always thinks I take too long to do any job).

Thanks. Services out here (Silicon Valley) are expensive, so, I generally can get the job done for parts and tools that equal a service call (which I would call a win because I get to keep both the tools and knowledge gleaned).

One question I have.

Here is a large-format picture of the fitting:

WHAT is the nipple threaded into? Is that a cast-iron fitting? Or galvanized?

I do a lot of amateur repairs but I only post when I'm clueless at the start of the job - so I apologize if what I post is all known to you already.

Since you're knowledgeable in this, may I ask YOU how you would have obtained the leverage to spin that corroded nipple off with just the tools I had at hand?

collapse it it will peel right out leave you a nice undamaged thread for the new nipple.

I can go to Home Depot right now and take a piece of brand new 1-1/2" chrome-plated metal drain tubing and crush it easily with a pair of Cha-nel-lock pliers.

We're not talking about galvanized pipe here we're talking about light-gauge drain tubing.

Not good. Now you have no way of cleaning out the trap, snaking, etc without cutting it apart. There is nothing super special about the geometry. It's just a question of lining the similar parts up.

I appreciate the advice - and I understand that without a cleanout, dissassembly is required ... but ... my logic (is it wrong?) was that we could now unscrew the bottom of the p-trap and then unscrew one end of the Fernco, and by doing that, the bottom half of the P-trap would just slip out.

Won't it?

And lastly, WD-40 is not penetrating oil. You need something like PB Blaster or Kroil. And give it a lot more than 10 minutes, perhaps an hour and if that doesn't work a second treatment leaving it overnight.

Yes, you're right. You can take it apart that way and it's fine. Sorry

collapse it it will peel right out leave you a nice undamaged thread for the new nipple.

chrome-plated metal drain tubing and crush it easily with a pair of Cha-nel-lock pliers.

drain tubing.

No. It's pipe.

Can't tell from the picture. You can find a way to spark test with a grinder on the internet, but I've never done it. It could be black pipe, which is basically the same material as galvanized but without the zinc coating. I'm not up on the metallurgy, just know that cast iron is brittle. I've got galvanized pipe and black iron elbows here for the sink lines, and cast iron for the toilet stack. Think it's all original, which would be 1960 or so.

Thanks. I can't tell either. I'm going to presume it's the original steel "T" fitting from the days of Eisenhower or Kennedy.

The interesting thing is that the kitchen was previously renovated in its entirety, so, that means the original installers didn't remove the nipple - perhaps because they too couldn't get the nipple off either, even without the kitchen cabinet in place?