This morning, our Sears 80 series washer 110. 82380800 suddenly failed. Looking for some guidance on what the problem may be. It fills normally, does not agitate, but simply drains again, then refills, drains, and appears to repeat this process over and over. I set the water level to considerably lower, and now it is agitating. What might have caused this, and do I still have a problem waiting to surprise me again? By the way, we have had this washer for just over 20 years.
- Phil
Coupler? Look for little bits of ground plastic under the machine.
I don't think so, as I tried fiddling with it some more, and reset the water level lower. Now it works! What happened, and is a failure of some kind in my near future?
- Phil
You have a Kenmore belt drive washer, a platform that is no longer produced, but parts are widely available. There are magnetic coils mounted to the gearcase which control various actions in the washer. One operates agitation/spin action, and the other operates the pump. Your problem is some aspect of the pump action. The default position is for the pump to drain out. When the coil is energized, a lever moves and switches the mechanical pump into a different position, in which it doesn't pump out the water. So, what is probably hapenning is that one of the following is broken:
Wiring to the coil that operates the pump lever, check hot side and neutral side for breaks The coil itself, which operates pump pump lever position The plunger that is inside the coil The pump
My experience shows that the most common problem is the first one. Since default is for the pump to be in drain position, then once the washer goes from fill into agitation, then it will start to drain at the same time, and when the pressure switch sense lack of water, it will start to fill again. Once you fix the reason that the pump isn't switching to "maintain water" position, then it won't empty at the wrong times. If the problem is the wiring, then you can either fix the wire using your own supplies, or you can buy a nifty wire kit (IIRC, 285610) with wires ready to be spliced. Make sure that your connections are not near the coils, since there is a lot of movement in this area and connectors won't hold.
Just a little correction: The coil that operates pump action also operates agitation; when it is energized, it makes the washer agitate and the pump drains when it is not energized. So, your problem still points to this area. The other coil only operates spin action.
But then again, I could be wrong. If the washer does agitate at certain times, then that coil has to be ok.
The wires do break on those old "wig wag" machines and that can give you an intermittent problem. I didn't realize this was that old.
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