1955 GE COMBO Restoration

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I was wondering that

too Paul, I didn't blow a fuse but was wondering if the heat relay was dead. But would that also shut the motor down, you would think it would just stop the heat and continue to tumble no?
When I recycled it the next time, not even the water valve would energize.

 

Its a puzzle. I need to scan the schematic so I can study it in detail.

 

 

jetcone++12-11-2013-20-11-38.jpg
 
Jetcone,I hope it is something simple. I am enjoying your thread. Maybe this malfunction is what took it out of service and preserved it until now.
alr
 
Oh, that is odd... Jon, was the drive motor running normally when you did the test after the water heater button incident? If the water valve was not energized, I guess you were not able to determine if the timer was still getting power or not...

If you have the GE charts showing the switch contacts being made at various phases of the cycle, you should be able to figure it out. Unfortunately when I did the same exercise I traced the problems I'd been having to a bad timer contact... Switch 'F' was the one that was the problem (and it's still not 100%) on mine!

Never a dull moment!!
 
Jon, had another thought: You mentioned that you found a bad connection on the water level control - the control feeds power into the timer, controlling a number of components including the water inlet valves. Check the connections and the actual terminals - the wheels fell off that early '56 combo I found this summer when the water level control went bad on me (one connection literally snapped off from inside the control!)
 
Jon,

I don't know if you checked inside the timer but in Paul's 1956, some of the contacts wouldn't close, probably because they've been forced to stay open for a long time by the timer cam. We had to bind them to allow them to close again. 
 
Hey Jon, if it helps, in the 56 red-black should be coming from the door switch and should be bringing power directly from the connector block. I inadvertently switched the red and red-black wires in my initial rewiring job, thus bypassing the door switch!

This is really interesting - the tan wire to the time darn near drove me crazy when I was attempting to get the combo running the first time around when I had NO wiring diagram or a service manual. I could not get power to blasted timer, so my 'Canadian Bojacques' wiring technique took power from the water level control to the timer. Not pretty but it did work!

All that being said, I will second what Phil said about a timer contact staying open.. The contacts supplying power to the timer will 'float' between' two internal switches - in my case the timer had frozen open and the switch hitting the tan wire was not making contact. It's actually still an issue with mine and I'll be attacking that after the holidaze...

Feel free to call me this weekend about this - I could write a book about GE combo issues now, I swear!!
 
Dead GE Combo

Jon Jon Jon, you should have never pushed the water heat with no water in the machine, LOL. That wiring splice you found was a field modification that was covered in a service pointer dated ,June 58, LOL In any event do you also have schematic wiring diagram that shows actual current flow ?.

In any event Paul and Jon I am just going to have to come up there [ when things thaw out ] and fix both of these machines. GE combos were one of the simplists combos electrically although GE often did not wire things in a straight forward way like you might expect, so it does leave you scratching your head a little wondering why they did something the way they did.

John L.
 
A Wizard!

John is wizard,there are very few people left like him in the world of mechanics.Whats the next generation gonna do? I have a mechanic like that,he works on my old mopars,I dont know what Im gonna do when he retires.I would really like sometime to get John to rebuild my old frog-eye,then it will probably last me the rest of my life.I need my 54 Imperial gone over good also before the other mechanic retires. We live in such a throw away world today! Merry Christmas All ! Bobby
 
Okay very strange results today

I know:

-Once I pushed the WATER HEAT button the machine went dead

-That the push button switches were badly seized and have since lubricated and checked continuity- it works now

-still no power to machine

-CB is on

-testing now I find one leg to ground is reading 240V and the other 0 _THATS NOT NORMAL!

-I found someone had cross wired the legs to the heater relay so that the black leg from supply was energizing NOT the gray to the motor and Black to safety thermo but the yellow leg of the heater coils -when on the diagram it shows the yellow leg from supply should make to the yellow leg of the heater coils.

- corrected that to match the wiring diagram

- know I have continuity from the Door Switch to Timer Control, Water Valve, Motor, and she is still dead 

-tested the supply cord it has normal continuity

- need to check the belt switch BUT from what I read it only comes into play during the dry cycle not the wash cycle so it shouldn't be a factor, need to check the scissors mechanism maybe i tripped it or knocked a lead off?

 

 
 
Jon, yes, by all means check that unbalance switch, too. THAT little devil was what kept the 56 from spinning! The belt switch kept it from drying, but that's a whole other matter!
 

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