Vintage Whirlpool washer - rear self-leveling feet

[Peabody]

It's a top-loading machine, model LHA7680, vintage 1979. After moving it to my condo, it now has one rear leg fully extended, and one fully retracted. These are not screw adjustments, but some kind of self-leveling system. Here are pictures:

There is no spring involved, and I don't understand how it works. It appears to be stuck or frosen, but I don't see anything that looks broken.

If anyone can shed light on how this works, and how I can get it working again, I would appreciate it.

[Rick]

I just tilt the machine forward so the back legs are about a half inch off the floor and then quickly let go. As the rear legs hit the floor they will self level. Easy peasy.

[micky]

Yeah, what he said.

i have a Whirlpool like that, also from 1979 aamof. It's not precision machinery but when it plops down, it moves into place. If 1/2 inch is not enough, try more.

[Peabody]

Thanks for the comments. I already tried that, and it's still stuck. Would it hurt anything to hit it with some Blaster penetrating spray to maybe loosen things up? Would it hurt anything?

I can't tell how the mechanism works, and I can't find any video on it. If anybody runs across that, please give me a link.

[Clare Snyder]

Tip the washer forward and support on blocks with legs hanging free and check the "balancer beam" for a bend. You likeluy caught it on something when you moved it and now the beam is "snagging" on the cabinet. Dropping it will just bend it worse. It is a pretty simple mechanism - but also easy to bugger up!!!! Wiggle and jiggle both legs untill they free up and are close to even - THEN drop it into place. You MAY need a pry bar to shift the beam back into place. It's just like the swivel axle on the front of a garden tractor but the legs are the wheels and they pivot on the end of the "axle" and are suppoerted upright by the guide holes. Possibly it is just the leg hanging down getting it's pivot pin snagged on the cabinet. DEFINITELY NOT rocket science.

[micky]

No, but I'd try hitting the longer leg with a hammer first**. It must be stuck on something, like a burr on the rod that connects the two legs.

Light, getting harder until it moves in. don't hit so hard you bend something, otoh dropping a 150 pound machine on that leg is quite a whack so you can go higher than that.

**Or pull the longer leg, each leg, out a little. Maybe that will un-catch it from whatever it's caught on.

It's only got about 4 or 6 parts, but it's been 30 years since I looked at it closely, which means from the back, hidden by the sheet metal. Maybe once I looked at it from the bottom

[Peabody]

I think I understand now how it works, and possibly what is wrong. Here are pictures of the "good" side (Level2) and the bad side (Level1). These pictures were taken with the frame supported on wood blocks, so there is no weight on either leg.

Originally I thought the pins in the legs rode on top of the 45-degree channel. But now I think that the underside of the channel should be resting on top of the pins.

You can see in the Level2 picture that the pin is just below the beginning of the channel. That leg moves freely, and I think it is ok.

The Level1 picture shows the fully retracted side which does not move freely. What I think I see is that the leg pin has gone all the way up the underside of the channel and has escaped from it and is now resting on top, and can't get back to the underside. (Although, it's not clear from the picture that the pin is actually resting on the top of the channel.)

It appears the channels need to temporarily move even further to the right so the leg pin can drop down below the channel, but it's already as far as it can go.

I don't see any frame bending or anything wrong with the metal rod that connnects the two sides - it is protected by the frame.

Does my explanation make sense, or do I have it wrong?

I don't know how to fix this. I can't really get to anything, and don't know what I would do even if I could. All I can think of is to lube the hell out of everything on the bad side and see if that makes any difference. I did try moderate tapping on the top of the leg with a hammer, but nothing moved. I thought if the pin was close to the edge, the tapping might work, but apparently it's not that close.

Thanks very much for everyone's help so far. I just hope someone has a magic bullet for this.

[Retirednoguilt]

Have you considered ignoring the broken leveling mechanism and leveling the washer by using shims (wood, brick, etc.) under the sides that currently tilt low?

[Clare Snyder]

Pry the grey part that the pin is jammed against on level 1 to the right and at the same time force the top of the leg to the left to get the pin down into the "ramp" portion of the grey bar.The leg on level one was very forcobly impacted during the move, springing it out of the "ramp" Just don't brak the nylon "guide"

[Clare Snyder]

Wouild require blocking up the entire front of the washer because the front feet are not long enough.

[Peabody]

I think I've fixed it. The breakthrough was removing the good leg through the bottom of the case. That allowed me to disassemble the entire leveling system, fix the parts that were binding up, and then reassemble it.

However, since the problem occurred when the ramp assembly went too far in one direction, I'm taking the precaution of adding a wood spacer between that end of the assembly and the case. That will make it impossible for it to move too far again. That may not be necessary, but I think it's a reasonable precaution to mitigate whatever frame distortion from moving caused this problem in the first place.

I really appreciate evryone's help on this. It's great when you can actually solve problems like this.