Hi all. I'm a fairly inexperienced DYI, but these forums have been of tremendous help in fixing some past issues. This time though, I'm unable to find this with a search.

After the shower arm in our upstairs bathroom broke off (threads left in elbow in wall), I replaced the elbow. Now when I go to put a new shower arm in place, it gets to the "hand-tight" position with the end of the arm that I'll put the showerhead on pointing nearly straight up. I need the shower arm pointing down.

I won't be surprised if this was such a newbie question that I was unable to find a search on it.

Any help is appreciated, and thank you all very much for taking the time to post in here. As I stated, you all have been very helpful on past projects!

that's a difficult one to answer. in reality there, there are regular hands, plumber's hands and gorilla hands. meaning some people are alot stronger than others. there are no specs, that i know of, to tell us to tighten to 180 foot pounds of torque or some such number. we all just go by years of experience. some times the female threads are cut looser or tighter and the same with the male threads.
finally my advice.. 2-3 wraps of teflon tape with a touch of pipe dope ontop. minimum of 2 full turns. use a rag to protect the finish and tighten with a 8" pipe wrench to get enough torque.(if necessary)

As a former bomb and missile loader for Harrier jets in the Marine Corps, it's the "gorilla hands" that had me worried.

Took your advice though, and it worked like a charm. No leak, no more shower arm pointing up, and no stripped pipe.

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help, as the overall project was the last thing we needed to have our house ready to show on the market.

Thank you very much Packy, and thanks again to all the helpful plumbers here, as I have now lost count how many times I've come to this site searching for help.

Thank you!!!

I had a rental property owner who used to call me about every 3 months to replace the washers on a PP 2 handle shower. Tenant was a former marine, now working as a tire mechanic. He couldn't control himself! Just torqued those things shut every time. I tried monel seat, blue washers, red washers, din't matter! I guess they were good tenants overall so the landlord just put up with the situation!

If you had converted to the ceramic stems there is no way he could go past the stops. I haven't replaced washers or stems on a PP compression tub faucet in a long, long time. in fact, I converted two last Saturday.

I found that when I unscrewed the pipe, connected to the back of the showerhead, which has a male thread on both ends - and then flipped it and screwed the other end into the wall that the showerhead then screwed on properly and tightened facing down.

When I tighten shower neck it points up instead of down