For those that have been around a while, you might remember that 18 months ago, I found two of these machines. I've been working on restoring one of them, but it has been a slow process as they'd been stored on a farm for the last 50 years. This is a Horizontal Axis machine that holds 12 pounds of laundry. its a bolt down and has an inbuilt heater. Its cold fill only which for 1960 is pretty unusual.
Just before Christmas, Leon found another one online still in its original house, bolted down in the Laundry in Sydney. I went back and forth on getting it, and then decided it was worth it for the Blue sections, rather than getting the control panel on my existing one recoated.
The machine arrived a couple of weeks ago, and when I took the front off, we were amazed at how clean it was underneath. Other than lots of dust and some oil, the machine was totally clean. More surprisingly, after a quick once over, I hooked it up, plugged it in and it was running. When it started to suds up, it started to leak, but not too much. Then in the last week when I've been running it, there was a puddle appearing underneath.
Today I took the front and the back off and was determined to figure out where it was leaking from and had my fingers crossed it wasnt from the main seals.
It turns out that the rubber grommet the inlet valve pushes through was perished and that explained the leaking when it was sudsy. The second leak is from the drain valve on the pump. I managed to easily replace the grommet for the inlet, and with some work got the drain valve out of the other machine I have. It wasnt as badly perished, so now it just drips rather than gushes, the original valve was a pile of crushed rubber.
What makes this suprising, is that other than some rust spots along the top edges of the panels, the paint has cleaned right up, inside and out, with just some Dawn and Elbow grease. Its not quite brand new looking, but not too bad for nearly 60 years old.
I've attached some pics with the covers on and I'll work back through the process.
All going to plan, I'll look to bolt the machine down next weekend and then we can try a maiden wash. There wont be too much to see, but the machine is pretty quiet, other than the pump grunting away as it drains and spins.[this post was last edited: 2/24/2019-04:07]
Just before Christmas, Leon found another one online still in its original house, bolted down in the Laundry in Sydney. I went back and forth on getting it, and then decided it was worth it for the Blue sections, rather than getting the control panel on my existing one recoated.
The machine arrived a couple of weeks ago, and when I took the front off, we were amazed at how clean it was underneath. Other than lots of dust and some oil, the machine was totally clean. More surprisingly, after a quick once over, I hooked it up, plugged it in and it was running. When it started to suds up, it started to leak, but not too much. Then in the last week when I've been running it, there was a puddle appearing underneath.
Today I took the front and the back off and was determined to figure out where it was leaking from and had my fingers crossed it wasnt from the main seals.
It turns out that the rubber grommet the inlet valve pushes through was perished and that explained the leaking when it was sudsy. The second leak is from the drain valve on the pump. I managed to easily replace the grommet for the inlet, and with some work got the drain valve out of the other machine I have. It wasnt as badly perished, so now it just drips rather than gushes, the original valve was a pile of crushed rubber.
What makes this suprising, is that other than some rust spots along the top edges of the panels, the paint has cleaned right up, inside and out, with just some Dawn and Elbow grease. Its not quite brand new looking, but not too bad for nearly 60 years old.
I've attached some pics with the covers on and I'll work back through the process.
All going to plan, I'll look to bolt the machine down next weekend and then we can try a maiden wash. There wont be too much to see, but the machine is pretty quiet, other than the pump grunting away as it drains and spins.[this post was last edited: 2/24/2019-04:07]
