Basement of Doom, the Sequel

OK, I've finally found the tool to remove the stainless steel cinch rings. It is not a TILE nipper, it is a 10" CONCRETE Nipper, found at Lowe's in the Tool Dept., not the floor tile area. Looking again at Alan's home video, I can see that is what he used, as well. The TILE nipper jaws to not fully close, where as the CONCRETE nippers do. Got a pair this morning, tried them on one of the fittings I had removed that still had the cinch rings on it, and VOILA, I got it cut off.

If you're replacing fittings using the copper rings, there is a tool for cutting them off and splitting the PEX remnant so you can remove it, if you want to reuse the fitting. But if you're reusing the original plastic fitting, the tool will not work with them. Only the brass ones. The inner diameter of the plastic fittings is smaller than that of the brass ones.

Moral of the story: if you're making repairs to the PEX connections, toss the plastic and replace with brass. I now have a tool box dedicated to PEX/plumbing repairs.

John, do you realize you've turned into a "Cellar Dweller" ? You have to come out of the bowels of your RV for a while dude... It's the weekend, Correct me if I'm wrong but you're retired right ? Comon, snap open the recliner, wink at the wifey and open up a brewsky. You need a break dude cause the cellar's startin to win Tom

John, sorry for the confusion, I had no idea what kind of Nippers I have, all I know is that the remove those clamp rings real easy. I removed about 40 of them toady.

Not your fault, Alan. If I'd printed out the photo of the nippers you had, I would have seen the difference when I was looking at the tools. And if I ever decide to do a tile job, I've now got a pair of nippers.

Tom, yeah, mostly retired am I. But, if you want to really know what's what and where in the rig, ya gotta suffer! And crawl into the belly of the beast. The recliner and brewski's will come aplenty when we haul it up to our summer site.

question: If you are replacing the plastic with the brass why do you have to remove the rings. why not just cut the pex put in the new brass and the new rings. with all of the extra line in there what is the point?

Where I had to make the repair, there was not enough PEX to do that. I had to remove at least one ring (on the white plastic T-joint with the first flex hose) or end up rebuilding almost the entire plumbing system. If you look at the photo, you can see the two brass fittings I replaced the plastic ones with. The new white PEX is almost the same length as what I removed. To cut it, you have to get between the ends of the fittings, which did not leave enough to insert a new fitting. Some of the longer runs in the background would allow just cutting and splicing, though. And a short length of PEX is not as flexible as it might look, either.

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JohnDar said:

Where I had to make the repair, there was not enough PEX to do that. I had to remove at least one ring (on the white plastic T-joint with the first flex hose) or end up rebuilding almost the entire plumbing system. If you look at the photo, you can see the two brass fittings I replaced the plastic ones with. The new white PEX is almost the same length as what I removed. To cut it, you have to get between the ends of the fittings, which did not leave enough to insert a new fitting. Some of the longer runs in the background would allow just cutting and splicing, though. And a short length of PEX is not as flexible as it might look, either.

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Wow, wholy cluster basement man! looks like a good place for a copper manifold in there someplace.

Eventually. I think Alan incorporated one into his plumbing redo and put it in one of his photos.