Tub spout is ruining my weekend

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Andrew Crawford

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So my wife bought new shower trim, replacing an old Price Pfister Avento with their Catalina line. While I was trying to unscrew the tub spout's galvanized pipe nipple to put in a shorter one for the new spout, I of course turned too hard on the nipple, and sheared off the copper pipe that it was connected to on the inside of the wall. Oops. So i cut a hole in the drywall on the other side of the wall to gain access, and the spout's galvanized pipe nipple was threading into some sort of weird bushing that i cannot find anywhere or even know the name of. Pics attached. The bushing itself was sweated onto copper, and from what I can tell, the mix of galvanized and copper resulted in all sorts of corrosion that made it impossible to unscrew the galvanized nipple.

Inside the wall, i.e. on the outside of the tub, it looks like the copper did a 90 degree bend towards the tub, then was sweated onto some kind of large hex nut thing, which also served as a flange on the hole in the tub. There was a similar hex nut on the inside of the tub, securing the ensemble in place. I only got the hex nuts to come off after soaking overnight in vinegar. Then there's a large threaded bushing running through the hole in the tub, which the hex nuts were threaded onto, and the pipe nipple disappears inside that weird threaded bushing. Not even the vinegar would loosen the pipe nipple, it's still fused inside the bushing.

Hopefully the pictures help explain it better than my rambling.

I don't know what to do next. I've tried prayer and it's not fixing my tub.

Also there's no cross braces.

The house was built in 1979, and i assume this is the original tub.

I can sweat on a new 90 degree elbow and run a copper stub into the tub, but that elbow will just be free hanging. I think the hex nuts must have served to "secure" the pipe onto the tub. Before I sheared it, that is.

There's a vertical DWV pipe (ABS) just to the left of the tub, preventing me from putting in a cross brace. (I thought maybe i could cut the ABS and reroute it a few inches, it's just an air pipe, then install a cross brace.) But even if i did that, I'd be looking at the wrong side of the board (ie the back side), so how would i screw screws into the drop ears?

Or i also thought maybe i could do one of those "smart spouts" that slide over a copper stub and tug themselves up against the inside of the tub, but i don't know if that would be secure enough. Would it be?

Does anyone know what the hex nuts/bushing thing in the picture is? Or suggestions for how to proceed?
 

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Jadnashua

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How old is that tub? It would not pass today's building codes since the tub spout must be air gapped above the highest level the tub water can reach.
 
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