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

Danny D. · 2013-04-01T01:56:57+00:00

Q1: How does one SNAKE a kitchen sink? Q2: Do you suggest larger-diameter plastic "J" pipes (with a trap door?)? Q3: What TOOL spins off a 1.5" diameter nipple when only 1/4" sticks out? Q4: Can a compression fitting attach to the corroded 1/4" steel nipple? Sorry to not have a picture as I had just returned from celebrating Easter when my sister called me saying her kitchen sink had suddenly overflowed during cleanup - so I rushed back to snake it but without my camera. Turns out you can't snake a kitchen sink (at least I don't know how) because one side has a garbage disposal while the other side has a built- in "cage" of some sort (which I guess comes apart from underneath). So, instead of snaking it, I looked for that little trap door on the bottom of the trap curve, but the pipes are all plastic which had no trap door. So I simply unscrewed the J pipe under the sink, only to find 4 inches thick ground up eggshells blocking the water flow. No problem, I thought - but then the real problems showed up when I tried to put it all back together. The horizontal plastic pipe AFTER the J pipe is supposed to be screwed onto a 1960's vintage steel threaded 1.5" pipe that juts out of the wall only about 1/4". Turns out that steel horizontal pipe is badly corroded. The plastic pipe after the "J" which fits onto the horizontal pipe has female threads, but the male threads on the steel pipe are gone - so it's only a press fit right now. I see a lot of caulking around it - so I'm assuming it was this way for a while but now it leaks (I didn't have any caulking with me and all the stores were closed today). So, what I'd like to ask is advice. Again, I apologize for the lack of pictures. I'll snap some tomorrow as I told my sis I'd fix it for her in the morning. My plan? I have no idea, but, I might first need to cut a five inch (or so) hole in the back of the kitchen cabinet plywood with a 4" angle grinder just to SEE what's there so I can get ideas for...

Apr 01, 2013 51 Replies

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trader4 13 years ago

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

rome-plated metal drain tubing and crush it easily with a pair of Cha-nel-l ock pliers.

auge drain tubing.

+1 It's obviously a 1 1/2 galvanized nipple, which is commonly what you find coming out of the wall, not chrome plated drain tubing.

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bud-- 13 years ago

A relatively small triangular file.

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Marilyn & Bob 13 years ago

My guess is a plumber would use Kroil. S/he would wait 10 minutes and if it that didn't work, would use a hacksaw blade to carefully cut a slit (or maybe two slits) in the nipple so it could be crushed and removed.

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DD_BobK 13 years ago

Don't need leverage......

btw, it;s not that oyu post stuff already known to me, it's that you post a lot of incorrect information as if it were correct. :(

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DD_BobK 13 years ago

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DD_BobK 13 years ago

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DD_BobK 13 years ago

the fitting is clearly cast iron

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carson ridder 13 years ago

RFC: New rules for a.h.r.

Please do not post to a.h.r unless you already know everything.

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andrew s 13 years ago

DD_BobK wrote on Wed, 03 Apr 2013 23:38:06 -0700:

Clearly DD bob k doesn't know the answer (so why does he reply?).

A bottle jack, on top of a support that spread out the force so that the cabinet was protected would have provided more leverage. Strategically placed BFH blows might also have worked.

However most plumbers would have done exactly what you did, only without the pictures.

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DD_BobK 13 years ago

cabinet was protected would have provided more leverage.

the pictures.

Bummer that you know only hack plumbers....

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DD_BobK 13 years ago

cr-

DD post a LOT of volume....quite a lot, he posts as "facts or answers" which are clearly wrong. He has a history of NOT taking advice from VERY experienced users of this group and dragging them out with a never ending flow of "wrongness" masquerading as fact.

You've probably missed most of the threads he's started....

They begin with questions but then evolve into "lectures of experimental results presented by the class dunce" Reminiscent "frogs with no legs cannot hear"

I would suggest this instead....

Please do not post to a.h.r "established facts" when they are really just what you believe to true based on a single event & no real experience.

Besides I have hard time letting go the fact the DDD "topped" a 50+ year old oak because it blocked his view. :( And that he is an ultimately slow learner who spends his time posting drivel rather than learning....

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