Stopper jammed in sink

[morningtoncrescent62]

I need help!! My bathroom sink has one of those metal stoppers that you push down to close, and push again to open. This probably isn't the right way to describe it, but I've no idea what these parts are properly called. I'll pop a couple of pictures in as it might not be clear what I mean. Anyway, this morning it jammed when it was closed, and I can't get it to open. I've tried filing the edge a little bit, but it's jammed - I can push it down a little way, but the catch doesn't release.

It sounds like such a small thing but I've no idea how to fix it, and my sink will be unusable until I do. Any ideas? If I have to ask a tradesperson to help, I've no idea what kind of person or how to describe the problem! I do hope someone can tell me what to do, please and thank you.

We use a teaspoon to lift ours as the mechanics broke years ago. Of that doesn't work you can glue something to the top and pull it out. Or if you have a fairy sized toilet plunger, that might work - or a sticky dart gun dart

Sorry I may have given bad advice, I misread you. Are you saying it's stuck down? Not that you just can't get it out? Sorry mine isn't a push down one, you just turn a knob to make it go down

I have the same and the same problem. What I do is unscrew it slightly. Push down hard with two fingers and turn them to the left. Hopefully that’ll unscrew it and it should pop up. I find the stopper has to be unscrewed half a turn to stop this happening.

I had that.

I managed to wiggle it open by bouncing it repeatedly.

It happened several times. In the end we changed the component.

But

www.instructables.com/Fixing-a-Push-Button-Sink/

This is what I do too (discovered this after trashing my sink trying to use a knife to prise it up)

Do you have a bath toy or similar with a sucker attached to it? Stick the sucker to the plug and use it to pull it out. You may need to twist it slightly

I think they're called a click clack plug.

A friend of mine got his stuck once. He used a suction cup to get it off. They're not magnetic, are they?

Can you get access to underneath the sink?

If you dry everything thoroughly and put rubber gloves on you can usually unscrew it. Remember that anticlockwise is to loosen it. Sometimes you can access the lever under the sink and pop it up that way. My sinks don't have an accessible lever so all the stoppers are unscrewed permanently. Give me an old fashioned plug any day. I need to replace all my (expensive) metal ones when I get round to it.

We had the same issue the other week. My fiancé managed to get it up (ooh-er!!) using mini screw drivers in the end. Looking online it suggested the mini suction cup trick but we didn't have one small enough.

Ours does this. It unscrews. If you can bounce it enough to lift it a little you should be able to grab it enough to twist it. I usually give the fitting a spray with wd40 to keep it working.

Thanks for the replies. I've tried to rotate it anti-clockwise, but it's not budging. I don't have a suction cup or toy - may have to get one tomorrow.

Yeah, ours does this. Push it down as hard as you can and turn it anti clockwise while it's pushed down. That usually works with ours.

I can prise mine off with a pair of tweezers or tiny flat screwdriver

Yay, just had another go at unscrewing it, using a nail file to get some purchase. And it worked. Many thanks to everyone who replied. Tomorrow I'll clean it as instructed in the website that @Baaaaaa linked to.

Glad you’ve fixed it! This happened to us recently and every time we pushed it down to encourage it to ping up, it went more and more down. Couldn’t rotate it. Unscrewed everything under the sink to try to jab upwards with a long stick to push it from underneath but it wouldn’t work (and when we screwed it all back together it was leaking, probably due to our shoving sticks up bits of it that shouldn’t have sticks shoved up…)

In the end the suction cup trick sorted it instantly. We had one for taking out ceiling spotlights, though there were some kids toys ones we could have tried too.

We use one of those mini suction cups for light bulbs too

I use this