Washer Woes Part 1

Awhile back, my rather old washing machine died.  When it did, it sort of took my laundry room with it...think Noah's Ark.  After a couple failed attempts at repairing the machine, I got rid of it.

For a long time, I was taking my laundry to Mom's place to wash.  She lives right behind me.  Eventually, I found a friend on FB that was selling his washer and dryer.  We made a deal, and I was on my way to laundry bliss!

He warned me, that it really shook, and even walked.  Well, that thing not only walked...it did an Irish Jig across my newly renovated laundry room floor.  This simply would not do.

I began to Google for an answer.  After a few visits to various forums, blogs, and videos, I found the likely culprit.  A missing "tub wear pad."

Onto the repair, went I...

Things went quite well..at first.  Things came apart, as they should, according to the YouTube repair videos.  Until...it came time to remove the inner tub!  The videos showed the tub just slipping right up and out.  Uh...Yeah.  :-|

My inner tub was clearly not at peace with the world.  It wouldn't budge.  Not the tiniest bit.  I yanked, pulled, pushed, shoved.  That sucker was s-t-u-c-k!  Years of accumulated soap, lime, calcium, etc had welded that puppy to the drive block.

Again, I turned to Google, and various forums.  Much advice.  None of it did me any good.  I poured everything I could think of down that shaft.  Vinegar, vinegar & baking soda, Lime Away, WD40, 3-in-One, boiling hot water...you name it...I tried it.  I tapped it with a hammer, I chiseled at it...hell...I even got inside the tub and jumped up and down.  Nothing worked.  Finally, I broke down and asked my dad if he had a wheel puller (one of the forum posts suggested this).

WOO HOO!  That did the trick!

Now, the way things should come apart is...
Remove the inner tub, then tap off the drive block.  But with the wheel puller, both came out together (drive block still stuck inside the inner tub).  Luckily, after a bit of cleaning, I was able to tap out the drive block, with a hammer.

ICK!

So, now I have the inner tub out, the drive block out, and am once again on my way to repairing my dancing washer.

I don't mind telling you, the inside of a washing machine is just plain nasty!  The following pictures are not for the feint at heart.  Chances are (if you don't run a regular cleaning cycle in your washer), yours looks a lot like this.

This is the outer tub.  The inner tub sits inside of this one.  Check out all the goo in there...and keep in mind, that I had already cleaned it out quite a bit.

 This is the bottom of the inner tub.
The pic on the left shows the lint filter (that attaches to the bottom of the inner tub).  The  pic on the right is a shot down the shaft...you can even see the drive block still stuck in there.
I warned you this was gross.  And believe me...I've seen worse!

But hey...that's what cleaning products are for, right?

 Here, you can see the inner tub, half cleaned, half not.  And the outer tub, all polished up and perdy.
My mother really taught me to clean stuff.  With like...toothbrushes (no, I'm not kidding).
I'm pretty sure she was a crackhead in another life.

Next, I needed to remove the outer tub.  This was certainly easier than getting that inner tub out.  Once I removed some hoses and springs, it slid right off.

 The three stages of my washing machine.

So, let's see if we can't get those pads fixed.  There should be three tub wear pads, and three suspension pads.  The suspension pads were all there, and in good shape.  But the wear pads were a bit worn, and one was missing.

 You can see in the first picture, that metal rests on these pads.  These pads allow the metal bracket to glide, as your tub is in spin cycle.  Without a pad, you're not only off balance...you have metal rubbing on metal.

 Here's a comparison of the side that was missing a pad, and one that had one.  

Check out the wear on that metal.

Although the suspension pads looked to be in good shape, I went ahead and replaced those too.  I figured...when am I going to have this thing all disassembled again?  Might as well have as many new parts as I can. 

Now that the pads are removed & replaced, time to put it all back together again, right?  Well...not quite.  During the process, a few other parts got ruined, stripped or just plain broken.  I put off ordering anything, until I had a complete list of what I would need.  Might as well save on shipping.  I also decided to change the lint filter.  It was in okay shape, but they have a new type, that I liked a bit better. 

Part Two

(Putting Humpty back together again)