Used socket needed

[reybo]

It's easy to say, "Oh, those are still available" but the tune changes after you look. This particular socket isn't made anymore.

I have a floor drain plug that hasn't been loosened since 1952. Frozen in place, there's nothing but an impact wrench that might break it free. It has a square nut measuring 1 sq. in.

I have a 3/4" drive Hitachi impact wrench which has all the power needed, but no socket.

The socket needed is a 4-point 1-1/8 impact with a 3/4" drive. As a metric, 26mm will probably fit.

I have a lot of hours invested in a search that revealed this precise socket is not made by anyone anymore. Not here, not Europe, not Asia. But it used to be made for farm equipment, such as by John Deere. 1 sq. inch is not unusual around tractors.

Only a 4 point socket will do. Not 6, 8, or 12. That's the catch. Anyone have a spare?

[Bus]

This may be a stupid question but why won't an 8 point work?. I thought they were for square nuts and bolt heads.

[rusty]

An 8 point probably would fit, but it won't help, they don't make those sockets for plumbers anymore because they *never* worked. The torque required to break free a 6 inch circumference of corroded metal from the edges of the cap is more than you can possably apply to the cap through a socket without breaking the cap in half, so the plumbers just sledgehammer them in half and save a lot of swearing... ;P

[geneg]

I agree with Rusty, the sledge or a cold chisel have always worked for me.  However, if you are not in a great hurry,  go out at least twice a day and treat the perimeter with some Gibbs, Kroil or PB Blaster.  Tap GENTLY around the edges with a brass hammer, spray again!  Be patient & persistant.  The only other possibility is to heat it repeatedly with a torch.  Mapp gas is hotter than propane.  This too will take several applications  you can alternate  the penetrating oil with the heat, but be prepared for smoke  & avoid heating the concrete.    Good luck.

[scottg]

Yup
Cut it into 3 or 4 pieces with a cold chisel. You can cheat and do part of the work with a cutoff disk in an angle grinder if you have the skill and the clearance.  But you still need the chisel for the critical parts.
Its the way it was always done.
If you stay away from the threads you can clean them back up and reuse with the new cap.
  yours Scott
 

[reybo]

Thanks to all for the wisdom. Time is an ally. I will spend months, years even, to get this plug out without having to pay someone to hate the job even more than I do.

So far it spent a week being occasionally vibrated in a pool of WD-40, then a week under Coca-Cola.

Today it was dried, cleaned, and chilled with Loctite Freeze 'n Release, an aerosol treatment that's supposed to cause sub-miniature cracks in the rusted joint so lubricants can leak in. We can all appreciate the possibility. Leaks have always been a natural part of life. No reason why a leak can't be on our side rather than against us, for once.

LFR is not yet on this famous scale of thread penetrants:

Penetrating Oil Type   Average load to achieve release

None   ............................. 516 Lbs   
WD-40 .......................... 238 Lbs   
PB Blaster ...................... 214 Lbs   
Liquid Wrench ................ 127 Lbs   
Kano Kroil ...................... 106 Lbs   
ATF-Acetone 50/50 mix ..... 53 Lbs   

There's a British company that makes a 4-point impact socket of the right size. Grainger and Fastenal can get it, and we have a Fastenal in town. I ordered one today.

[RedVise]

Reybo, 60 years of rust will be hard to break free.  If the socket doesnt work, I suggest a pipe wrench and a cheater bar. The cheater may give you enough leverage to break it free, or break it...   Then it's time to get out the chisel as suggested earlier.

Good Luck !

Brian L.

[reybo]

Maybe someone knows for sure what this drain is. It's in the furnace room in a concrete floor. It's 6" across, 2.5" deep, with a removable grill cover. There is a 2.5" plug in the center, possibly never removed, and a 2" plug in the sidewall in regular use.

There is one water line upstream of this drain. It drains the clothes washer on the floor above. The line carries that water under the house and thence to the city sewer running the periphery of the property.

That was all this drain ever did until 1995 when we added central air. Needing someplace to drain the condensation, and with this floor drain only 4' from the air handler, a 5/8" hole was drilled through the 1" nut of the 2.5" plug in the bottom of the drain and a condensation drain line stuck in. Not a tight fit, just snug. Water could seep around the pipe.

After a decade or so, the condensation started to occasionally back up. Something blocked the line (a trap?) under the drain. To fix, I'd remove the 2" plug on the sidewall of the drain and the backed up water (a quart or two on the floor) flowed out.

I installed an alarm to announce when the water backed up.

If the clothes washer pumped out while the 2" side plug was removed, a small quantity of wash water, a pint or so, would puddle around the drain and then flow out.

For maintenance the system got a summer monthly dose of chlorine at the uphill air handler end of the condensation line, and a once-a-year dose of root eradicator through the 2" plug. So far, so good.

Stepping back for a minute, I have lived in this house for 28 years and always  believed the house had two lines to the city sewer, one terminating at each of the manholes on the property. The line I imagined for this drain ran under a heavily wooded section, so roots entering a 1952 sewer line seemed reasonable.

Two years ago on June 24 we had a 60-second wind microburst in town that leveled that wooded section. Leveled means trees 40" in diameter were snapped off and decimated everything downwind. After 12 grand spent for cleanup, we had lawn where once there was woods.

Forward to last month. There was the usual hotspell condensation back up. I applied the chlorine, and an extra large dose of root eradicator through both drain openings, the 2" plug and 5/8 drilled drain hole. Time to wipe out those dying roots once and for all.

The drain plugged up. Zero flow.

I called a rooter service who ran the line through the 2" plug. Cleared that line in 15 minutes. No problem. But the smaller rooter going through the 5/8 hole got nowhere. That pipe stayed blocked. He said it was a trap. To learn more, the 2.5" plug needs to come out.

It can be speculated that root eradicator pellets clogged the trap under the floor. Since they dissolve, the blockage will eventually pass without need for removal of the rusted plug. But I'm too far into removal to quit merely because it's pointless.

The $229 paid to the rooter didn't all go to sewage transit. I also had the house sewer line checked where it entered the manhole, to make sure it was clear at the lower end.

Then came a shock. There was no customer sewer line in that manhole.

So we drained the clothes washer to see where the flow led, and found that water left the washer, flowed to the line under the floor drain, and crossed under the house to connect with the main line leading to manhole #2. And there was free flow, no blockage whatever.

So this week, the condensate is temporarily going out the side hole while we contemplate further action with the trap. A powerful shop vacuum sucking out the root eradicator through the 5/8 hole is one possibility. That worked when my granddaughter blocked the bathtub.

If it were up to me, it would be illegal to sell a house without passing a full set of plans to the new owner including plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical.

[OilyRascal]

Maybe consider a camera/scope and locator.  For a minimum fee you could probably have a view of the blockage and a locator showing you exactly where it is.

[reybo]

The unpredictable happened: the plug is free.

Came by an Armstrong 8-pt impact socket, 3/4" drive, 1-1/16. New, no wear. I had zero faith in an 8-point. Even less when I discovered the Hitachi impact wrench HAD to rock back and forth. Pull the trigger to reverse, let go and stop, you cannot reverse again until first going forward. Makes sense to me now because it worked.

On the third reverse cycle the plug spun out without a fight. Was the Coke bath after the treatment with Loctite Freeze 'n  Release ($16) responsible? Might be. Certainly didn't hurt. The Hitachi is no toy. It's rated at 450 ft. lbs.

So the 2.5" drain is open.

The shop vacuum wasn't effective sucking or blowing on the 5/8 hole before the plug removal. Afterwards when used on the open drain, blowing in it pushed the water level down 4", sucking brought it back up.

The drain pipe is open but the trap is for sure blocked or possibly corroded. A camera there may be overkill. Appears to be a steel version of the floor drain pictured here, http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2012/03/if-you-have-basement.html

I'll find a harmless augur and try to dredge gunk from the trap.

[Papaw]

Happy you succeeded! At least part of the problem is solved.

[reybo]

Thanks, Papaw and everyone.

Spent an hour fiddling with the drain tonight. The sewer line is open. No blockage all the way to the manhole. But something is solidly plugging the curve of the floor trap. Coming at it from either end, nothing will make it past the curve. Not a coat hanger, not a 1/4" flat spring steel cable, not a 1/2" coiled snake.

I'd like to be able to pressurize it and blow it out with a Drain King 186 http://tinyurl.com/6nl2g5l  but there's not enough free pipe for this device. Pipe can be added, but having no pipe threading tools, it's a big deal for me to properly thread a foot of 2.5" steel pipe to fit the tapered female threads of the trap.

Have to work that out.

Have a good weekend.

[reybo]

The last word is sludge. The trap was choked with thick sludge.

Used the turkey baster to draw the water from the trap. After a while, when you put the tip under the surface and squeeze, bubbles come out but no liquid comes in. That's sludge. Trade the baster for a battery filler. The larger hole will suck up the sludge. When there's no more to get, flush the trap and the job is done.

Easy source of flush water without dragging a hose in from outside: the drain cock on a nearby hot water heater.

[rusty]

Oh, I love sludge, sludge is great stuff.
Long ago when I was doing cleanup stuff, one of the things we used to clean was oil/water seperators. after you siphon off the oil, drain out the water, what's left is sludge...

In theory, you clean them yearly or more often, and the sludge is nice and soft and squishy and you just suck it up into a truck.

But people don't do that, people procrastinate, they wait untill the thing is clogged solid with 10 years of sludge. By then it's turned into this nice thick substance resembling clay mixed with tar...

Which is almost what it is, drain sludge is largely silt and fine sand that washed into the drain, plus some organic glue that makes it all stick together. The longer you age the glue, the better it sticks...

If you stuck a shovel into the stuff, you went out and got a new shovel..
If you stepped into it, you went out and got new boots..

We used to suck it up with a truck with a 1000HP vacuum with an 8" hose.
More than once I went flying across the room when the sludge wouldn't budge and the vacuum hose went instead.

Ahh...yes...great stuff sludge....

[Wrenchmensch]

We live in the country and all of us use septic systems for waste disposal in our homes. Some neighbors, ignoring conventional wisdom, installed and use garbage disposals. This generates sludge in the distribution field over time. What to do? One high-powered engineer (also a USMC Viet Nam vet) put in a second distribution field in his backyard comprised of snap-together black plastic sections of rigid mesh pipe. He then put a valve in so that he could switch from one field to another when he needs to. I'm not sure how he plans to clean sludge from the distribution field systems.