Trumpy

As one who lives in the Exp. prf. world, let me answer your question. Yes, chico can be removed sometimes, I 've done it many times. In fact I've done without hurting the wires and have pulled new ones right beside the old ones. I've also seen bad daming so the Chico went down the pipe and made the pipe unusable. Patience, a dull screw driver and a shop vac works to remove the old compound.If you are pulling all new wires its easier to replace the fitting.
I could drive around and show you hundreds of sealing fittings with nothing in them. [Linked Image]. I poured about 20 or so last week on a job. We used existing pipes and none of them were sealed when we started [Linked Image]