Closed position and the lever will not open has a rod in the drain that activates the stopper I think but its not working

Hi Howard

Did you try to take the screws out of the trip lever face plate and see if you can pull up on the plunger mechanism by hand? If not, disconnect the face plate and pull up on the entire mechanism... see if it can be pulled out.

If you get the plunger mechanism pulled out then clean it real well and then apply some plumber's grease to the plunger and reinstall... should be all set after that.

If that fails to work then you may need to get a little more creative here... may even need to access the drain from behind the wall.

Start here and let me know what happens, OK?

Mark