replacing closet flange

[Rickb]

I am replacing everything from the flange to the on my toilet drain, and have purchased what materials I thought I would need ahead of time. One question is I bought a flange (pvc) that uses a rubber gasket instead of the wax ring, should the top of the flange be flush with the floor or slightly lower? Also I don't know what the existing flange is made of, there is a 4" lead elbow coming out bottom of the floor going to a cast iron tee with what looks to be lead gasket, how hard is that to get apart?

[jadnashua]

Not the way to do this...trying to make a compression fitting seal to the lead closet bend isn't going to work well. It may not leak until you have a plug, then it would leak out because of that poor seal. The lead bend usually is attached to a brass sleeve that is held in place in the cast iron hub via a leaded fitting (made with oakum and poured lead). That can be removed by drilling out the lead and prying the pipe out, then cleaning up the lead and oakum. You can buy a rubber donut to fit in the hub and it will seal to a piece of pvc or abs drain pipe and you can rebuild from there.

[Rickb]

Thank you for your reply, I greatly appreciate any help, I noticed I left out tee on my original post. I am replacing from the flange to the tee, I have the rubber donut to fit the hub in the cast iron tee, a piece of 4"pvc pipe, a pvc el, and a pvc closet flange, and a rubber gasket to go between the toilit and the flange, instead of the wax ring (suposedly easier,better seal,reusable). Now I'm wondering about the height of the flange to floor. I guess once I remove the toilet I could look at the bottom to see where the gastet would seal and go from there. By the way, I'm doing all this because a video inspection revealed a build up of some kind (calcium or lime ?) just before the tee.