Weight Drain No Longer Drops

[kolinl79]

House was built in 1925, the upstairs tub is a weight drain with a trip lever.

I had a guy come clean out the drain a few weeks ago, I just tried to plug the tub now and the weight drain is not dropping down all the way to stop the water. When I attempt to drop it manually with removing the trip lever cover, it gets "stuck" on something. If I use a snake past the drop point, pull it back and re-try to drop it, the weight drain begins to work again. As soon as I release the water using the trip lever and re-try to stop the water it stops working, i.e. same problem crops up. I though it was a spring mechanism at first, but the weight drain threw me off.

Looking for ideas on troubleshooting without the need to pull the drain pipe out. Worried after 85 years it's not going to like it.

-Thank you

 

[frodo]

pull it out and see if it has a adjustment. might just be out .

 

[kolinl79]

I did pull out the weight previously, it was slightly off from the adjustment, approximately 2-4 cm. It made no difference on if the weight dropped.

 

[phishfood]

It sounds as though there is something in the horizontal pipe from the drain opening in the tub to the vertical drain that the plug moves up and down in. When you snake it, it gets pushed back into the horizontal, and the plug can drop down fully. When you allow water to run through the drain, the water flow pushes it back into the vertical pipe, back into the way of the plug.

 

[kolinl79]

Any ideas on what it could be? Hoping to troubleshoot from up top.

 

[frodo]

probably a hair ball. use a wire/coat hanger with a hook on it,see if you can fish it out

 

[kolinl79]

The snake should have got it. Whatever it's hitting is hard and metal.

 

[frodo]

earth magnet on a string. I dunno!. time to cut the walll

 

[Mr_David]

Try plugging the over flow with a wet rag and use a wet vacuum on the drain.
Then visa versa. maybe you can suck it out.

$15 on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Waterproof-Endoscope-Borescope-Inspection-Camera

Maybe you can see what it is. Never tried one but for $15
Or you can spend a couple hundred on a better inspection camera.