Trip lever in bathtub drain not connected to lever. Need to find way to reconnect. Unsuccessful trying to remove linkage completely.

There should be two screws holding the lever plate in place. Removing them gives you the access to see what's going on.

It sounds like you already have the plate removed, Lawsonb...

If so, then take a metal coat hanger and fashion a hook into one end and go fishing for the barrel and linkage assembly that connects to the trip lever handle of the tub waste and overflow plate...see if you can retrieve the part that way.

Back to you...

Mark

The "trip lever" has a lever on the overflow plate near the top of the tub. There is a linkage rod inside the overflow pipe which connects to the stopper. Some styles have the actual stopper inside the piping and other styles just use the linkage to operate the stopper in the tub.

This may help. Good luck, Tom