Whirlpool washer fun

[Stormin Mormon]

My siezed up pump just gave a vague over heating smell, as the belt slipped.

[gfretwell]

When you can get a picture printed on real photo stock for 19 cents, why bother?

[gfretwell]

The ones made since the Carter administration do not have a belt. The pump is direct drive and the transmission is driven through a plastic coupler designed to shear off before you break something expensive.

[Robert Green]

When a similar thing happened to me (wife's nylon ped escaped the delicates bag), the nylon stretched to about 20 times its original length and wrapped around the impeller drive shaft.

I spent hours unwinding it and cleaning all the crud, got a greasy as a White Castle hamburger and nicked every knuckle on my hands. I was so proud of having found the problem, took the machine apart, pulled the super-elongated footwear out and gotten the whole machine back together.

Despite my heroic efforts, when I got home from work the next day, my wife had purchased a new Sears unit that was on sale and had the old one hauled away. I was more than a little peeved but she pointed to a white blouse she had washed in the machine that now had a big grease stripe on it. Apparently I didn't wipe the tub down as well as I thought. She told me that she knew the only way to keep me from chopping it up for parts was to spirit it away while I was at work.

I think the only thing I ever worked on that was harder to reach was the power steering pump on an old Jag sedan. After trying to replace it I reached the conclusion that they began the car's assembly by having someone hold the steering pump in the air and then assembling the entire rest of the car around it. Whitworth, SAE and metric screws, too!

The best part is that when the PS pump gasket failed (it was at some incredibly high PSI - I want to say over 2000, but that may be a total brain lapse) it spewed power steering fluid all over the always overheated exhaust manifold, emitting a cloud of smoke that looked like D-Day invasion camoflauge.

-- Bobby G.

[Stormin Mormon]

I don't know off hand when they changed over. I do know that my machine is belt drive, and has served me well.

[Jules Richardson]

If the contacts were badly pitted, they might not last *that* long before they fail again (but that's worst-case and you're still extending the life of the washer for a bit longer*).

I remember taking apart timers as a kid - some of them have a bazillion switch contacts in them that are all the same design. If you have one like that then I bet you could swap contacts with good ones that control a washer program that you never use...

• and by the time it dies next, new front-loaders might be a fair price...

cheers

Jules

[WW]

SNIP.

[bob]

I really did not think this would be a permanent repair. But it buys me time to maybe find a used timer or other cheaper part. Somewhere out there is someone who is throwing away a washer with a bad motor and a good timer,,,

Maybe in the future i will get one of these tosser front loads and try to restore it to life. I still don't know if i am 100% sold that they are a long term wise idea.

bob

[Jon Danniken]

While IANADP, convenience, control, and immediate results would probably be logical reasons. Last I checked you can get some pretty fancy paper, too.

Jon

[gfretwell]

The ink is the problem, not the paper. You will find your colors start fading pretty fast if the sun hits them. Ink jet photos are great if you just want to show somebody your picture and they don't have a PC but 10 years from now that won't be much of a picture.

[Jules Richardson]

good call! :-)

They work - or at least the ones I grew up with in europe did. Problem in the US is that they're still expensive compared to identical-featured models in the rest of the world (why? maybe just because the manufacturers think that's what people are prepared to pay?), and I'm not sure the service/spares availability is there quite yet.

Give it a few years though and I think they'll be a good investment...

cheers

Jules

[Jon Danniken]

I'm pretty sure archival quality inks and papers are available, I know they were when I was reading around on r.p.d. a half-dozen years or so ago.

Jon

[gfretwell]

Regular ink is outrageous, imagine what that must cost.

In real life, paper photos may end up largely being a historical oddity in the near future. My grandkids are always fascinated with our photo albums. They don't really understand a time when you didn't look at pictures on your phone. We will probably end up being like it was at the turn of the last century when people only had a few photos sitting around in fancy frames that were more like art than idle memories I know my kids do not have drawers full of bad photos in envelopes that were never looked at more than once. I do not miss that experience of paying for 27 pictures and only really keeping one or two if any at all. Digital cameras have made the shot to print ratio more like 5,000 to one for me although I do distribute a lot in email or on my web site..