Often worth a quick look. ;-)

[T i m]

Hi All,

Yesterday I thought it was probably the final end for our fairly old but good Zanussi TD-534 conventionally flued tumble dryer.

I say final end because it's survived (the dump) on a couple previous occasions, the first being the rear bearing [1], then the belt tension pulley [2], then the belt itself.

Since the new belt it's been making some new noises (mostly put down to the new belt being tighter or some such) and yesterday the Mrs tells me she heard it stop, went to empty it and noted the drum wouldn't rotate by hand as it normally does. She also noted the clothes weren't quite as dry as normal so turned it on again to finish them off. It wouldn't run at all so turned it off and told me.

Today we lifted it out, took it to bits and I found the motor was pretty well seized solid. I removed the motor, took off the blower and plastic mounts and then, working on the 'nothing to lose' principal, (marked then) split the motor. As suspected, one of the bearings was very tight and again with the 'nothing to lose' approach gave it a spray with some Teflon cycle lube (but working on the premise that I was going to order two new 6001ZZ bearings on Monday). However, after working the bad bearing back and forth and a bit more spray it soon started to move freely and was soon feeling very smooth again. ;-)

Anyway, after blowing both bearings out with the compressor and re-lubing them with some medium weight oil it's all back together and running quieter than it has for ages, plus I now know the bearings are cheap, plentiful and easy to change if it turns out I do need to get some.

Oh, and it was all done with a small hex driver, a Pozi No2 and the Leatherman PSTII. ;-)

Not rocket science or nuffink, just nice to be able to old-skool 'fix' something now and again in this throw-away world.

Cheers, T i m

[1] The drum spigot had worked it's way through the rear bearing and half it's mounting plate, damaging the spigot in the process. Luckily you can buy a replacement spigot so I just drilled out the rivets and bolted the new one on with cap headed stainless bolts and nylock nuts. [2] The plain metal bush had collapsed on the old plastic belt tension pulley so I bored it out in the Myford lathe and fitted two new suitably_bored_out oil-lite bushes. New pulleys are available quite cheap but I'd have to order it and wait for delivery. That was another 'give it a go' moment that's been fine for 6 months so far. ;-)

[John]

So what would be your preventative maintenance recommendation? A bi-annual strip clean and lube?

[T i m]

Funny, I was thinking about that ... the extra 'noise' that appeared after the belt change (but I think was a co-incidence) and how with hindsight I could have looked closer at it then.

Dad used to say, "Were there's noise there's wear" but he also used to say "Don't fix what's not broken ...".

For things that are predictable, like the need to change engine oil at regular intervals then I guess a bit of routine maintenance is a good thing (both because of the fresh oil and in the doing you may spot other signs / issues) but I'm not sure how often you would find anything if the took the back off yer tumble dryer or washing machine?

However, now I know the routine with this particular tumble dryer (and the 'irreparable washing machine that's now lasted a year after being written off) I guess I could give them a check over once in a while.

Cheers, T i m

[Tim Watts]

T i m wibbled on Sunday 07 March 2010 22:49

[TheOldFellow]

Reminds me of the Creda we have in the garage - used almost every day, but not fit to be seen the house any more. My mum bought it in about

1970. I sometimes use it as supplementary heating in the garage too (3kw).

New belts & filters (several), new capacitor, home made new main bearing. I do an annual service on it - mostly removing dust. I shall be sad to see it go when we finally get a round tuit.

R.

[T i m]

Cheers. ;-)

The thing is, apart from the small sense of satisfaction one gets when you do get a result like that (I guess part of the reason some of us frequent uk.d-i-y in the first place) but partly because we didn't have to wait 'to get a man round' and I can sorta offset the cost of what that would have been against the extra energy we may be using on this older unit and worse, the cost (in both production / deconstruction energy and straight financial) over a new one.

Plus there is the fact that we 'know' this one, it fits in the space (finding a external venting machine with a left side exit isn't that easy these days) and it's supposed to be auto-sensing (not sure how well that's working though).

Now I fully know how simple it is and how little there is left to replace then I can't see it being a problem again for a while . ;-)

Cheers again.

T i m

[T i m]

Awww :-(

That's a bit of lateral thinking. ;-)

Ours has wipe able filters

First time I've touched out cap was yesterday when I released it from the mounting to remove the motor rather than pulling the wires off.

Nice. I was going to make a bearing but the spigot had worn through the bearing and half way through it's mounting plate before the new noises told us something was wrong. However, I think the whole assembly was around 20 quid delivered so not too bad (and certainly quicker and easier than re-fabricating it all).

We generally run the vacuum round anything (suitable) we take apart, just because it makes it cleaner and easier to work on.

I bet. Similar with Mums washing machine. It's a very old Hotpoint with basically a start and stop button and it's sorta infused itself with their house after all the years (in fact I think it's actually holding one end of the sink up). The last time I had to look at it for her it was (just) a belt. The Mrs was on her way back from somewhere and she picked up a new one from a local shop and I'd got it fitted before Mum had got round to making us both a cuppa.

My only question to Mum before I started looking at it was "does it still wash ok". She said "yes" and that was all I needed to hear. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Jules Richardson]

Yeah, I like old dryers for that reason... simple engineering and very little to go wrong in them. No way would I want a modern one with any kind of computer control and electronic readout! :-)

Ours has to be 1970s and still going nicely. It's worth taking them to bits once every couple of years I think just to clean them out; I found a good build-up of crud in ours and it was taking twice as long to dry stuff as it needed to (I suspect a lot of folk get rid of old dryers for this reason, thinking that there's something wrong with them)

cheers

Jules

[Piers Finlayson]

I found my wedding ring that had been missing for two years when I took our dryer apart. Oops.

[T i m]

I did have to buy a long nut-runner because the back panel is held on with 2 x posi and 4 x hex headed self tappers, two down the bottom of long tubes?

Agreed. Whilst I like 'electronics' I don't really want any in my white goods or motor vehicles.

I'm sure you are right [1]. With ours there does seem to be a faster general build-up of internal dust but I guess that's to be expected after so many years of doing it's thing. When the front lip of the drum finally wears away (I've replaced the felt 'bearing') I think that really will be it.

Cheers, T i m

[1] With ours it's usually down to the flap / grille on the external wall vent that gets blocked.

p.s. I can't remember the number of (especially) Dyson cleaners I've saved from going to or salvaged from the tip that simply needed a good clean out. How can someone chuck away something of that sorta value (~£200) for the sake of a clean?

[S Viemeister]

Especially since Dysons are so easy to take apart and clean out.

[T i m]

Absolutely!

Step daughter was round and mentioned she needed a bigger cleaner. I looked on Freecycle and someone was offering two, one being a Dyson, neither were working. I emailed her and got a reply back with minutes so popped round there and collected the Dyson straight away (and gave her a bottle of wine I'd been previously given). ;-)

When I got back stepdaughter was still there and found and removed the blockage while she watched.

She didn't take it there and then so it gave me time to strip it right down and wash all the (non electrical ) parts in the bath and she picked it up next time looking like new (with new filters).

The DC05 I picked up from Freecycle was "dead and going to the tip" had it not been collected by a Freecycler. One trimmed mains lead and new 13A plug later ... ;-)

I only realised the Rover 218SD I bought off a mate for £100 (with 6 months TAX, 2 new tyres and only £100 because 'there were a load of things wrong with it' and he just wanted rid) has been with us since

2003 and has just clocked up 200,000 miles. That is another example of something I didn't particularly want (always been a Ford man) but couldn't refuse at the price and because it's been so good (and is still doing ~50 mpg) I would consider getting another one should the need arise.

I really think we (as a race) are generally living above the planets means so this level of consumerism just can't go on (can it)? Well, I guess it must if we want to keep enjoying good second hand stuff cheap!

We had a couple turn up over the weekend with their new car. They got £2K off it via the scrappage deal. It still cost them 7 grand or so and my Mrs commented how she couldn't consider spending more than the

2K you get off for any car (let alone the 7)! But then she's happy driving about what was my Dads, then our nieces 115,000 mile Astra that cost us £350 (we felt generous as it was our niece) loads of years ago. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Jules Richardson]

No such problem with ours - but I don't like the way the rear panel hooks underneath the machine and is secured by bolts underneath as it means tipping the whole machine over to get inside the back; next time I have it apart I'm going to make a an access panel for the fan so I can get to the bits that need cleaning a little more easily.

Yep. Complexity for the sake of it isn't my thing. Complexity on efficiency grounds is a bit more noble, but I often find myself questioning whether the complexity saves money (given how hard it can make it to fix, or how expensive parts can be).

I wonder about some careful filing / smoothing of ours next time I have it apart (all the internal ducting and the fan are metal, and I don't think the edges are very smooth so catch things easily), and maybe some of that foam window-insulating stuff to seal the passageways a bit better (assuming I can rule out that being a fire hazard)

Yeah, someone mentioned that on another ng recently and I think it's one of the main things that could outright kill a dryer - that and possibly the timer going (although as it's a stack of cam-driven switches on ours and we don't use half the programmes, I bet I can rearrange things should a contact burn out and spares be unobtainable :-)

I hate dyson stuff. Nice when it works, but every dyson I've known gets to that point where it needs a strip-down, clean and rebuild a couple of times a year, and I just couldn't be bothered (not least because they're all so plastic-fantastic and not designed for repeated rebuilding). Current house is 90% hardwood floors, and the traditional upright vac copes well with the other 10% :-)

cheers

Jules

[terry]

Well done indeed. And yes the high cost of labour these days does lead to much of the "Chuck it away and get a new one" philosophy! So if one can repair something oneself it is good. Not only has your fix reduced landfill/scrap etc. it has reduced the need for the industrial production of a new machine and the resultant pollution of that whole process. We have only bought one 'new' clothes dryer and that was in

1960, still have it but looking for double ended motor to fix it. Currently using a dryer that got for a dozen bottles of beer some 5 years ago. Also had returned to us a spare dryer that we had lent to a lady with four kids; it now needs only a blower belt (About 3 quid?) to be restored to full operation.

[John]

Well done indeed. And yes the high cost of labour these days does lead to much of the "Chuck it away and get a new one" philosophy! So if one can repair something oneself it is good. Not only has your fix reduced landfill/scrap etc. it has reduced the need for the industrial production of a new machine and the resultant pollution of that whole process. .

I wonder how many kids bikes get replaced when a bit of old fashioned bike repair technology would have kept them going?

Similarly - how many good TV's are dumped so that the owner can buy a new LCD / Plasma to watch the same programmes as before. Little "real" benefit in most cases (however, I can't wait for my rather nice JVC CRT to pack up so I can join in)

[T i m]

I think something else we had was like that. As you say, not ideal.

I thought of doing similar but for an oilier (thinking it was the tension pulley squeaking). Run a fine tube out to the side somewhere and apply some lube via a syringe.

Indeed, how something expensive (like a car) can be written off because of what is often just one 2p diode or resistor (a mate repairs car engine management computers). And it's not even a matter of just swapping stuff out any more, relays and even car radios are now locked to the main computer so often need costly 're-programming). A mate recently spent £400 getting a new key for his car!

Ooh, a bit of gas flowing / performance tuning eh! This dryer has left, right and rear vet outlets so the dead-end / unused ports do tend to capture some fluff etc. But then that doesn't matter as long as the used exit stays clear (and it generally does). It just tends to build up a bit of a skin of fine fluff (that won't even vacuum off easily) so I don't suppose it would do much harm.

Yeah. Mind you, with some steel strip and the pop rivet gun and some epoxy filler to sort out any sharp edges I bet even that could be resolved. And who actually cares what it looks like as long as it works?

I bet you could. I think pretty well all our appliances are used on the one setting, except the washing machine possibly.

Yeah, whilst I enjoy the side effects of their popularity (plenty of spares etc) I'm no real fan either. Our main cleaner is a Miele Cat n Dog as it's way quieter than any Dyson. [1]

We were thinking of replacing the old and worn carpet in the lounge with laminate [2] but I'm still not sure I like it. It always reminds me of (respectfully) a waiting room or the Chinese takeaway. I thought recently I was going to have to do it as I was told I was suffering some form of allergy ... possibly house dust mites or some such but that seems to have gone away as weirdly as it came?

Cheers, T i m

[1] Bought with the aid of a sound level meter in the local electrical shop. They seemed quite keen to entertain this particular 'nutter' as well, dragging machines out from the store just to see how they compared! ;-) [2] I found out they do a narrow Victorian floorboard look type laminate that I could put over these narrow Victorian floorboards!

[Jules Richardson]

Interesting idea. Ours squeaks just a little bit every once in a while, but it's not bad (or frequent) enough for me to want to trace it.

Urgh, screw that. There's an AM radio in our ancient truck, but I'm not sure if it even works :-) Actually though, perhaps what's worse than complexity is the lack of manufacturing service info for things. I mean, I don't mind computers in cars as such - providing I can get full schematics, diagnostic info, firmware dumps etc. free of charge so that I can fix problems myself. I still prefer simple engineering, but it's complexity hand in hand with closed, proprietary systems that really annoys.

Ha ha! Yeah :-) Actually I think it was here I posted when I was thinking of relocating the dryer to the basement, as I was worried about performance running through a long and potentially twisty duct. In the end I did move it and it runs about 10' through a 90-degree bend and two at 45 degrees, and so far with no ill-effects.

Heh, that's true... especially with ours in the basement, it doesn't matter how it looks so long as it's functional.

So long as it's not a big glued-together blob, anyway. Part of me thinks I should pull the timer module on it and figure out a wiring diagram for it *before* it breaks. Not enough hours in the day, though...

Actually, the spares were part of the problem - I remember my folks had a Dyson and a little plastic widget at the end of the hose broke; Dyson didn't carry the widget as a spare, but instead wanted to charge me an arm and a leg for a whole replacement hose assembly. In the end freecycle provided what I needed - but it always bugs me when the manufacturer who makes the parts doesn't sell them as spares, but instead tries to palm folk off with some larger module (that grates with my frugal side, too!)

I really don't know if I can get Miele stuff this side of the Atlantic - must check. I keep hearing good things about them (but then maybe they're not *that* good, and it's just that everyone else is really bad ;-)

Ours are all hardwood strips of about 3/4" deep and 1 1/2" wide (which is quite narrow compared to most hardwood floors). A couple of the rooms could do with sanding and refinishing in a year or two, but the guy who lives next to us owns a hardwood flooring company, so I'm sure we can come to some arrangement :-)

It's astounding how much dust and debris collects on the stairs, though - dust and debris which otherwise would have been trapped by carpets.

I've heard that from people with allergies, actually, that they seem to just come and go sometimes. I suppose it's something like you inhale something that disagrees with you, and that makes you really prone to other airborne things until your body figures it out - until the next time, anyway.

We've got two dogs and three cats here, but thankfully all seem allergy- free (unlike the mother-in-law, which can be a blessing ;)

I like that :-) I'm almost surprised that they aren't required to publish noise info for cleaners, actually - it's probably fairly high up on the list of things that make a difference (although perhaps one that most folk don't think about at purchase time)

[Jules Richardson]

Yep - I see bikes being thrown out all the time whenever we venture into town. Problem is lots of things now use undocumented or over-complex parts - or the owner doesn't have the ability or tools to fix it themselves (understandable) but the repair shops that would once have done it have all gone.

How to fix the problems, I don't know... society needs to be less greedy, but then manufacturers need to make things more repairable (more thought in the design, spares supply, published service info etc.).

I can't see the point in "low grade" recycling (separating metals from plastics etc.) - not when we could be fixing things at a higher level so there was much less waste in the system.

When it comes to computer displays, I much prefer CRTs to LCDs. LCDs just give me a headache, no matter how much fiddling I do with the controls. Something about the nature of the light output, maybe (LCDs always seem either too bright or too low-contrast).

I've never owned an LCD TV, so can't really comment - but every time I see them in the shop, they're *too* sharp, giving everything a jaggy look, there's lots of banding between shades of the same colour, and lots of blocky artifacts within supposedly "solid" areas. Why anyone would pay so much to watch that, I'm not sure; high tech it might be, but that's no use if it ends up looking worse than a CRT. I could understand it if all I watched were movies where I could control the source somewhat, but for watching broadcast stuff it seems a bit pointless.

cheers

Jules

[Gib Bogle]

A friend was getting rid of a motorbike ('86 Kawasaki 'Ninja' 250) that had been sitting in his garage for a year not working, and I offered to take it off his hands (I'm quite generous like that). I tracked the main problem down to a rusty petrol tank, and specks of rust in the deep recesses of the carburettor, and after fixing that and cleaning the rust out of the cooling system, assorted fibreglass repairs, and a few other minor issues, the bike ran well. I've been commuting on it for the past 6 years, and it has been totally reliable. Performs better than the Norton Dominator 500 I had many moons ago. I get a kick out of keeping something like this on the road, whereas the idea of a new bike has very little appeal. My Dad was always fixing things - it must be genetic.

[Gib Bogle]

People like us are probably anti-social though - they tell us that the modern economy depends on everybody buying lots of stuff. If we didn't keep replacing all our stuff, where would the jobs be? It's kind of crazy, isn't it?