So it didn't take that long at all since I fixed the kitchen faucet that I ran into another surprise which kept me from making any progress with the cabinet refacing. Here's a clip to give you a good summary and intro of what I had to deal with.
I started working on the sink after dinner and tucking in the kids to bed. A little after midnight, I was able to cut the cabinet backing and drywall around the stub out pipe to give me a better view of what I was going to be working on. I was also able to finally disconnect the blown stub out pipe and inspect what I'll need to work on next.
The blown stub out pipe was definitely dead. It was so rusty that it was disintegrating into dust. I was so worried that the pipe wrench was going to break it off in the middle and have the rest of the pipe stuck on the drainage tee.
The previous owners definitely didn't take care of what goes down the sink as there were some weird rusted out clogs that were visible once the stub out was removed.
Later that day (and after much thinking and Googling), I felt that I had a plan in place to continue. The drainage tee was in pretty bad shape, had tons of gunk all around the walls and the threads seemed non-existent at some sections. I seriously didn't know what to do at this point other than to cut the section and put in a pvc replacement.
With the fear that I'm going to end up cutting the pipe tee, I decided that I'm just going to exhaust all available options before going that route. I decided to scrape off the gunk and rust around the threads with a flat head screw driver, a steel brush and a tooth brush, to see if there are still any usable threads left for a replacement stub out. After a while, I decided that there were and that it was time to hit the hardware store to gather the parts that I'm going to need.
Picked up a 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 rubber reducing coupling, some teflon plumbing tape, and a new pvc trap adapter for the stub out.
After a quick dry fit, wrapped some teflon tape around the trap adapter and tightened it flush to the tee.
Installed and clamped the reducing coupling next and then cleaned, retaped and reattached the drain pipe and p-trap fittings.
Pipes and fittings finally retaped, attached and ready for final adjustments. Hand tighten once everything is lined up correctly.
Once everything was connected and tightened, time to open up the water lines and test to check for any leaks.
After the leak test, thankfully everything was finally functional. It took a total of two days from discovery to completion. I had a three day break in between to try to recover from what felt was a bout with the flu. I took advantage of the downtime to research my options and figure out what needed to be done. There really isn't any days off for dedicated DIY'ers specially when something mission critical such as the kitchen sink breaks down when you least expect it. All in all, it cost me less than $20 to fix with the help of the internet and a lot of critical thinking.
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