My wife and I purchased our first house two years ago. We are finishing up a bathroom remoldel that we've done 100% ourselves thus far. I refinished the bathtub with 2 part epoxy and it looks great! So great that I would like to replace the 50+ year old trip lever/plate assembly. To my surprise, it is NOT anything like a standard assembly you would find at any hardware store. Instead of being a toggle style lever, it's actually a crank. So with the unit assembled, you simply rotate the lever versus toggling it. My second thought was just to replace all of the plumbing with new and the new style mechanism. WRONG! My house is on a concrete slab fondation and the builders 'burried' the horizontal portion of the drain in concrete! :mad: Question is, where can I find this "crank" style trip lever/plate? Or can I? After hours of searching on the internet, I've come up empty handed.

There are shops that specialize in salvaging fixtures and parts of homes being torn down. Check with them or contact Speedball1, our plumbing expert.

Maybe instead of replacing the entire unit you could take the exposed parts to a place that does re-chroming, this would at least make the showing parts look good. Oh and while you have the parts off you might want to re-glaze under where they were before you put them back in.

Kissler & Co., Inc. (http://www.kissler.com/)

I have searched the web and can't come up with a crank type tub waste and overflow. I guess that went the way of bathtub drum traps.
Letmetellu's advice is beganing to look more and more like the only solution. Good luck, Tom

Question is, where can I find this "crank" style trip lever/plate? Or can I? After hours of searching on the internet, I've come up empty handed.

Kohler manufactures a waste and overflow (http://www.us.kohler.com/onlinecatalog/detail.jsp?item=409102&section=2&category=8&subcategory=51) who's 'guts' will probably interchange with your existing drain body.

Check the Yellow Pages for a Kohler rep in your area who has a show room so you can visually inspect the W/O I am suggesting.