i am returned from the plumbing wars.

The toilet bowl came out with only a rather moderate amount of cursing.

This left the toilet outlet pipe vulnerable to a frontal assault. Got the drain ‘snake’, and pushed it down there. At one point, i thought that i felt something give, but i kept pushing, and it seemed to continue its travel down the pipe.

Anyway, hoisted the snake back inboard, and decided to try a test. Got two buckets of warm water, dumped them down the toilet pipe. Not a hint of any back-up. OK, maybe some good was done.

Removed the old inlet and outlet seals (the outlet seal and it’s environs was…well, ‘not pretty’. Cleaned up all pipes and connection points. Fitted the new seals, re-installed the toilet bowl. Time for a trial flush.

Seals work fine, should do for years.

As for the backing up problem…no improvement.

Baffling. All is well when the bowl is removed, has problems when it’s there.

Something my dad told me (in connection with car mechanicals, but it works here, too): you know best when you know that you don’t know enough. Find someone who does.

So i’m now going to call a plumber.