"Brandon McCombs" wrote in message
g.com...
Hi,

I recently moved in to my first house a few months ago. Over those few
months the stopper in the main bathtub gradually stopped being able to
stay in the up position to allow water to drain. Currently the stopper
won't stay up at all. The stopper is the type (from what I've gathered by
reading stuff online) that you can simply can push down with your foot or
pull up with your hand to let the water begin to drain.

The problem is I can't find anything in the mechanism of the stopper that
would allow it to stay in the up position. There is nothing there to catch
it from what I can tell. I unscrewed it and simply found a short metal rod
that had a threaded hole in it. I can't tell how long the rod is but it is
in a hollow housing that allows it to move up and down. The rod is almost
round but it is flat on 2 sides (rounded on the other 2 sides).

On the side that is closest to the water faucet in the tub there is a
screw that goes in from the side. Without a 90 degree head for a
screwdriver I can't do anything with this screw and I can't tell whether
something should be done to it. The previous owners didn't live here and
only bought it to fix it up (including this bathtub). Since I can't really
tell what the mechanism is for making the stopper stay up I'm hesitant to
go out and attempt another; I doubt this one is defective in any way. But
does anyone have any ideas on what to do to fix this issue? Should I
attempt to screw the screw in more so that it causes more friction with
the rod when I move the stopper up and down?

My ASCII art is horrible but I gave it a shot. Below is my drain as if you
were looking down into it. The "X" made by the slashes are simply the
supports for the part that holds the hole for stopper to screw in to. The
"O" in the middle represents the threaded hole the stopper goes into. The
-: represents the screw that I see as well as the direction. It is
perpendicular to the hole the stopper screws into. The rod (for lack of a
better word) that the "O" is in moves up and down with the stopper and,
unfortunately with no friction, it currently is always in the "down"
position which means water can't drain if I screw the stopper back into
the hole.

Front of tub ---
_______
/\ / \
/ \ __/ \
/ / \ \
| | O|-: |
\ \__/ /
\ / \ /
\/ \/
--------


*Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me that you can take it to a
plumbing supply company and buy a replacement. It sounds as though it is
broken and not worth fixing.