Let me preface by saying I'm a total novice so go easy on me We had a leak that ended up ruining the curb and a couple of studs in our shower so we're attempting to demo and rebuild. The house was built in '68 so the drain in this shower is an old cast iron drain. I'm not sure if I need to remove it and replace it with a newer 3 piece or not, but I can't figure out how to even remove it. I'm attaching a picture so hopefully you can understand what I'm describing. The shower pan was under the concrete base so the pan is the bottom layer. After busting up all the concrete and exposing the drain I can see it has threads and at the bottom (closest to the floor) it has what appears to be a nut, then there's a ring of some sort and then the shower pan is mashed between that and another ring and then the bottom being my concrete slab/floor. As you can see in the picture I tore and peeled back some of the shower pan to expose the bottom ring, I wanted to see if maybe I could find a screw or anchor of some sort, but nothing. You can also see in the picture that there are holes where the nut and the ring meet, are these weep holes perhaps? There's so much gunk on it that not all of the sides of the nut have holes, only about 3. Plus because of all of the gunk it's firmly attached and it being almost flush to the floor it's difficult to get leverage on it.

Here's a photo to help explain. [i1127.photobucket.com]

What should I do from here? How can I remove this or should I even try? I can remove the shower pan by tearing and peeling it away and then put on the liner, concrete and tile but it doesn't seem like the best way. Would doing it this way be waterproof? Do I need to worry about the holes or the corrosion of the entire thing?

You have a shower pan and drain which was the way they were installed back then. You are right in that there are weep holes and also the top portion of the drain is secured by 3 bolts that hold it together with tarred black felt paper as the pan. Even if you jack hammer the concrete and expose the trap and trap arm, if you attempt to cut the cast iron which is probably rusted pretty bad, it will probably collapse with broken edges that you can't use to repair with a coupling. I am guessing as to what you will find but from the looks of the drain, I believe I am right. I believe you just may have uncovered something that is not repairable and must be totally replaced. I know you do not want to hear this but you may have to remove the existing cast iron pipes and replace with ABS... a huge job. Let's see what others say... I am always eager to listen to new ideas. All the best.

you are looking at an older version of this...


there is a pipe below that shower drain fitting. you'll need to bust away some more cement to see what you have. if the trap riser is long enough you may be able to sawzall it leaving enough to attach a rubber coupling and a stub of plastic. you can then glue on a new shower drain.
lots of pictures and a few videos on google. search for 'shower drain for tile'..

Somewhere in the cement covering the top ring, it is not a 'nut', there will be three or four bolts clamping it to the cast iron bottom flange/piece. Remove them and the top piece will come loose. If you are lucky, you may be able to find a new drain with the same size top that you can then use for your new shower pan.

That's what I thought I would find, some bolts, but I can't find them. I'm not sure if they're just covered up by the gunk or the heads corroded off. I've been chiseling the gunk off slowly but haven't uncovered them yet.

If the heads "corroded off" then that top piece would have "fallen" off.