Ball-joint shower adapter

I thought it was a simple thing. My wife wanted a handheld shower head to replace the fixed head on one of our showers. I bought one and then when I unscrewed the old shower head, it revealed a pipe with a ball on the end, not the threaded straight pipe the illustration on the new shower head box showed. So I measured both female openings for an adapter and went to Home Depot, then Ace Hardware, looking for an adapter to secure the new head to the old pipe. Ace had one that looked perfect. Except when I got it home, the male end of my new adapter, where it screws into the shower ball joint end, was too big. So I Googled and found our there is something called a American Standard adapter and one called a Price Pfister adapter. There is no writing on my poking-out ball joint shower pipe. How can I tell what it is? And just why is it that we can't have standards on plumbing? As nearly as I can measure the diameters are 1 1/16 for the part that is attached to the ball joint. The one I bought seems to be 1 1/8. What is the best way to get this business finished? Thanks. What you need to do is replace the arm itself.It screws into a fitting just inside the wall.All shower arms are the same size at that point (1/2 NPT) and the item will be referred to as a shower arm and flange. Trying to adapt to old types of shower arms is problematic at best.I'm very surprised nobody at the places you went to especially the hardware store suggested you do this. Thanks for the advice. I am concerned that I will twist something off inside the wall. The wall is tile and wherever the joint is behind it, it is not visible from outside. Maybe I will just get a professional to change it. It's strange - my other bathroom, which presumably was built at the samw time, has a normal threaded pipe for the shower head. There is probably a metal plate around the shower arm. This is called an escutcheon plate. It MAY have a caulk seal around it that will need to be cut if it is there. Under the plate, there will be a hole larger than the pipe. Unscrew the pipe using a pipewrench or channel-lock pliers close to the wall and turning counter-clockwise. Remove and replace with a regular showerarm using about 4 wraps of teflon tape. I guarantee, you will be really mad if you call a pro to do a five minute job when you see the bill. He will not be ripping you off, just getting his regular trip/labor charge. Good luck.

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