My bathroom sink drain flange cracked so I decided to replace the entire drain pipe since they are not expensive and I didn't think I could find the right flange piece to fit the pipe.
The store I usually go to were out of drain pipes with pop up drain and overflow so i went to Home Depot. The only ones they had were these things, which looked ok except for the weird pop up lever.
The drain pipe itself seemed ok, except that the flange is flat and not sloped at all so not all the water drains completely. That's a pretty major design flaw imo especially in a humid environment.
But the thing that really fucked up my day was the pop up lever.
I should have realized it was shit and just driven to a farther store, but I had lunch plans today so didn't think things through. I thought this repair would take an hour at most but I couldn't get the pop up to work so left it unfinished, went to lunch, hung out a bit, and then decided to finish up this evening. I mean, how hard can it be to figure out a drain pop up? I figured I just had to play with it a bit and it would come together.
After many redos and the rods slipping out from each other (this thing is mostly flimsy rubber rods wrapped around each other), it did eventually come together at least at first. But while testing for leaks by filling up the sink, the metal pop up rod pulled right off the rest of the assembly.
Because as you can see in this diagram, the rod is just stuck in a rubber rod and "locked" into place with a rubber ring, which isn't tight at all. It's not loose, but it kinda just fits perfectly, so any force and the rod pulls right out.
My neck and back are killing me from working under the sink and i decided fuck it, just duct tape this shit so that it doesn't fall apart.
I'll probably revisit this within the next year because I suspect it will fall apart or the water sitting on the flange will cause a leak or mold but for now I'm just going to live with it and remember that even something as simple as a $15 sink drain apparently needs to be researched first cuz stores will sell absolute garbage.
I found a reddit thread and the guy called customer service and Glacier Bay said ya don't buy this.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/3xvq6m/help_installing_popup_stopper_in_bathroom_sink/