I have a pedestal sink in my bathroom and my horizontal pivot rod for the pop-up stopper broke. I was going to simply swap out the pivot rod, however, the short end that broke off fell down the drain into the trap. From the sink down to the bottom of the trap is about 14 inches.
Is it OK for me to leave it there or do I need to disassemble the entire sink to get the small piece of broken metal out? Ideally, I'd fish it out with some long tweezers, but I'm not sure they even exist.
Best Answer
You could check if the remaining piece of pivot rod that you have in hand has magnetic properties (i.e. a magnet will stick to it). If so you can probably be successful in retrieving the broken part from the trap using a tool similar to those pictured below:
Magnetic reach tools can be purchased online, hardware stores or big box outlets. In addition to the type shown above that have the flexible shaft there is another type that has the shaft made out of a soft aluminum wire that can bend slightly as the thing is pushed into the drain line. This latter type is typically a lower cost than the types pictured.