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


If you can get a sabre saw in there with a metal cutting blade in it,
try cutting a slot on the INSIDE wall of that half inch reducer, and
continue it across the outer end of the reducer up to the start of the
tee, then try collapsing the reducer with a pair of vise grips and
unscrewing it.

It won't hurt if you cut into the female threads on the 3/4" tee
slightly, pipe dope on whatever you screw back into it will seal it up.

Been there, done just that,

Jeff

--
Jeffry Wisnia
(W1BSV + Brass Rat '57 EE)
"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."