1950 maytag washer

[dj]

I bought this washer last summer to work on it and never got the time, so it ended up in storage. The deal was when I bought the washer it sat in a dry basement for 60 yrs. I plugged it in once- turned the knob and it filled and stopped.If you turn the knob it appears to go through the cycle, but only manually. The guy told me that he thought it was the timer. I found a place in onterio Cannada that rebuilds timers. That's the first and last time I played with it. Moved on to other projects. If anyone is interested in buying it i'm asking 200.00 What I paid for it. It's been in a climate control storage through the year.

 

[easyspindry]

That's the first automatic . . .

. . . we had when I was growing up. It lasted through three children for 15 years.

A great machine.

Jerry Gay

 

[christfr]

aww love it. had one then sold it and totally regret it. how far from st louis are you

 

[tomturbomatic]

I know that this has been explained to me before, but when and why did Maytag go from a completely perforated wash basket to one with alternating panels of perforations and solid spaces? It had something to do with baffles or tanks in the solid areas on the outside of the tub as I remember. Thank you in advance.

 

[swestoyz]

From the July 1955 Let’s Talk Service.

Beautiful AMP! Chris - go for it!

Ben

Maytag tub baffles - Tom’s question

 

[qsd-dan]

Timer issue sounds like the timer motor or escapement. These earlier timers used metal gears and usually the grease hardens and the gears/shafts seize up. A teardown, cleaning, and re-lube gets them going again most of the time. Successfully accomplished that with a few Mallory timers.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thank you, Ben. So the totally perforated wash basket bolted to the solid tub held water between them?

 

[dj]

I love the old Maytags. My great grandmother had one like this in her cellar. Every time we would go there to visit as a little kid,I would remember having to make up an excuse to go down caller just to see the washer. I remember my grandmother would say don't touch the washer. They knew what I really wanted to go see. Anyway I was just going to say hers was like that and I remember her getting a new one when I was 16 so she had it since 1954 I think my mom said. What I wondered though is why they made a tub with holes in it when It was a solid tub behind there?I had the hose laying on the ground when it was filled with water and the only time the water drained out is when it would spin.

 

[swestoyz]

Tom - yes, that is exactly what Maytag was doing. The updated tub assembly had baffles in the outer tub to collect sediment, centered below the channel. During spin out the theory is the water would flush up along the channels and carry with it sand, etc.

As for the beautiful '50 AMP DJ has posted - Dan's suggestion about the escapement is a good one but the 2-14 timers are prone to an early death due to the black Mallory timer motors. If swapped for a later timer motor (with a bit of revision to the bracket holding the motor on), it often springs everything back to life.

Ben

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks for the life-size picture!

That was a pretty big re-engineering project early in production. I remember our neighbor's AMP with the totally perforated tub and its inability to deal with the sand in the girl's bathing suits despite repeated runs through the rinse and spin. I wonder how many loads had sand in them. She said that she would just shake out the sand when the suits were dry. When it died at around 11 or 12 years, it was replaced by a GE Filter-Flo and before they moved to New Jersey, they bought the matching dryer to take with them.

 

[circlew]

I remember seeing a machine like that at Swallen's. It had won the contest as the oldest working Maytag automatic washer, and that would have been sometime in the mid 70's. I think the sign said it was a '49 model.