SPDCA: Fixing a toilet.

The metal lever connected to the flushing handle in the top of my toilet broke off. A few times, in fact, each time making the lever a bit shorter, but this time the lever broke enough that I could no longer connect the chain to the release in the bottom.

This left me with a metal lever, corroding where it sits below the water line. What I needed was something to extend it a little bit, and have some surface to hook the chain onto, as well as have that extender be a non-rusting material, and something that would clamp on to the remaining lever enough to survive a flush and refill.

My solution (rather than going down to Home Depot and buying what I can only guess is a $2 part), was to take a pen apart, use the pen's outer cylinder to wrap around the metal stump, and shove a large rubber band in with the metal stump to make sure the pen didn't slide off. Hooking the chain to the end of the pen (where it would normally clamp around your notebook, or pocket) worked well, as the tab on the end of the pen makes sure the chain can't slide off.

Now it flushes like a champ, at the added cost of a pen I stole from the barber, and a crappy rubber band that came with an Amazon package.

I win the prize.