Replacing a Bathtub Drain Lever and Lever Cover

Since I moved into my current house, I thought the drain in the kids tub drained like we had filled it with molasses.  Sometimes it would take up to an hour for all the water to finally get out of the tub.

For the longest time, I ignored the problem or just put it in the back of my mind.  I mean, there's always going to be a bigger fish to fry somewhere, right?  Well, since the kid's tub is something we use on a daily basis (more or less :) ), I started Googling a little more each day until it was on the forefront of my mind.

The first thing I noticed was that the lever you pull up that stops the water didn't go up all the way.  Also, the cover that houses the lever was a little dented.  It's old and, I assume, the original in our 35 year old house.  So, after scouring the internet to see if this was something to be meddled with, I decided to attempt to dig into the tub drain.

This "This Old House" Q&A post provided a very handy diagram on how the lever worked with the bathtub, although the question submitter was having a different issue.  It seemed pretty straightforward.

I took the lever off of the bathtub, which was held on by two front facing screws.  I pulled out the linkage and stopper that were attached to the lever.  Here's what it looked like. Note the beautiful puke green tile in our bathroom. :)

Looking at the lever, there was a bunch of really gross calcified gunk that was preventing the lever from going up all the way.  I couldn't get it all off.  Since the gunk was stubbornly stuck on the lever and there was a noticeable dent in the lever cover, I decided that replacing the lever and lever cover would be best.

Off to Home Depot I went to find a new lever and lever cover.  Unfortunately, Home Depot didn't sell the individual components, only a whole draining assembly.  Wanting to get this project over, I went ahead and bought it for around $25.  Here's what it looks like.

I got home and pulled out the the parts I needed from the package.  I then attached the old stopper and linkage to the new lever using a pin that came in the package.  Since the old linkage and stopper are not broken and the stopper and linkage I bought were made out of plastic, I decided to reuse the old parts.  Here's what it looked like after the assembly.

I then screwed the new assembly into the tub and tried out the lever.  It was MUCH smoother and went all the way up and down, just like I wanted.

I then tested it out by filling up the tub a few inches, leaving the water for a few minutes to make sure the stopper is still doing it's job, and then pulling the lever.  The water exited the tub MUCH faster.  

That was pretty much it.  Not counting the drive to Home Depot, the whole replacement process was probably about 15 minutes.