JustinW wrote:
Hi All,

I'm rehabbing a building that is 40-50 years old. While mowing the tall
grass, I ran over a outside faucet and destroyed it. I dug up the line
and intended to plug it. It was half inch galvanized pipe. It was
originally assembled with some type of thread-sealing pipe dope that has
long ago turned rock hard.

What I tried to remove the first connection, I put a cheater bar over a
pipe wrench and tried to unscrew the damaged fitting. The pipe was
weakened by corrosion and it just crushed. I went up the water line and
broke several other fittings.

I'm now working under the house in a tough environment -- very little
crawlspace, sloping ground and a few other things. I'm trying to remove a
half inch reducer screwed into a three quarter galvanized T. It's the last
fitting before I encounter serious expense doing some wholesale repiping.

So far, I've used a propane torch on the galvanized T while periodically
dousing the reducer with water. I've also used about 5,000 gallons of
penetrating oil. I don't have room for a cheater (good thing huh?) and so
far I can't budge the reducer with two-foot pipe wrenches.

Any thoughts or ideas would be seriously appreciated.


Justin
..
Can you just cap it off at some point where the pipe seems reasonably
substantial and get- at-able. Even if you have to hacksaw off the pipe
and then cut a thread on it onto which to screw a galvanised cap?
Just an idea anyway.