1960's very early 70's Indesit Front load FOUND U.K

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Indesit L5

Here it is in the scrapyard right way up, not too bad condition, its mainly dirt and grime.

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Oh WELL DONE!

I am SO pleased to hear that you have been able to rescue it and I hope you find that its only the door boot thats the problem - and I sincerely hope that one of those will be forthcoming. The thing I will mention is that these had a slow spin (around 400rpm) so Mrs gpo746 might not be too happy about it - or with having to spin the clothes is a separate spin drier - you may need to get a modern machine to be your "daily driver" as we say. I look forward to seeing more pics when you get it cleaned up - and thanks again for rescueing it
Al
 
Thanks for your support everyone,it's much appreciated, Yes I do believe the spin cycle is rather slow, I cant figure the pump out as it is a permanant drive off the back of the motor?Does it re-circulate the water during the wash then somehow switch to an outlet at the end of the spin? I have only had a quick look in the scrapyard when it was ontop of the heap.Can someone enlighten me! Has anyone got internal pictures so I can see the full layout as this one appears to be all there but its off its suspension and the pipe off the pump is missing, BTW The door seal looks only to have come loose I thought it was no good but I think it will be ok to test it on. I still would like to hear from anyone who has a manual,I am more than willing to pay for a photocopy or whatever.THANKS
 
no recirculation

wash speed is not enough for this particular make of drain pump to work. Drain pumps on washers are centrifugal pumps (low speed = low centrifugal force, not enough to reach the required prevalence).

Indeed this machine can't have a neutral (meaning no-spin) drain.

 
Hiya Dom

Been away for a few days and come back to this!

Am over the moon that you have managed to rescue to old girl - bet it was a faff and a half to get it down from the pile.

Do you know how long it had been there for? It doesnt look too bad and appear to have visually stood up very well, for all the trauma that it has been through.

I have never seen this blue version L5 before, so its a totally new one on me. Both the L5's in my family had black facia surrounds with chrome powder chute cover, dials and facia.

As Seamus has linked to, door seals do appear to be still available. It appears that Indesit used the same seals on their L6, L7 and L8 machine. Despite them all being long long obsolete machines, the fact that one seal covers them all has probably ensured that they are still in production. If you do have issues finding one then, time permitting, me and Rob would be willing to venture back to the stall and acquire the one I held in my hands two weekends ago. Rather hectic at the moment, so it would be when we could squeeze a trip in.

Like Al says, they are slllllloooooooooooowwwwwwwwww spinning machines - 380rpm if I remember (will have to have a gander at a Which magazine to confirm). So having a backup spin dryer would be essential.

Am really pleased that you have decided to take on the machine yourself. What a great vintage machine to start a collection with. Word of warning - the bug bites hard and before you know it, unless you are careful, you can have them coming out of your ears!

I am afraid that service and general history of Indesit machines is definately not my strong point, so I am unable to help with mechanical queries, but there are a number of videos of preserved L5's on Youtube. Maybe you could contact one of those machines owners and, language barriers permitting, maybe they could offer you some advice. Just type 'Indesit L5' and you will get some vids that show the wonderful spin draining of these machines.

Do keep us updated on this great machine - brilliant that you succeeded in getting it and fingers crossed for further success at the scrapyard.

Paul
p.s what are the words to the left of the 'INDESIT' name on the badge and what is the model number of your particular version?
 
Indesit L5

Hiya Paul, The words on the badge script are 'Super Automatic' , it says the same thing on the soapbox lid with the Indesit logo, both are raised / embossed . I have had a look inside and it looks intact minus the pump 'bubble' pipe, these are readily available , the door seals , timers,pipes and spider and bearings are readily available brand new,(Thanks Seamus for the link ! ).Im a little dissapointed that it only has a 380rpm spin LOL ! Nevermind... The missus still wants me to get a Hotpoint 18680 or Liberator! . I will take my time doing the L5 up, I want to wait till the good weather before I can strip her down and re-spray the chassis and buff up all the plastics, I think it would be a good Idea to record the process step by step with plenty of internal photos to help guide anyone else interested in a L5 restoration,

Im not quite sure about its exact model number/type Paul, as unfortunatley the back cover is missing :o( , It doesnt matter because I can make one for now.

Its such a simple arrangement inside I think it shouldnt take too long to restore, one thing I am alittle dubious about is the temperature sensor which appears to be like a cooker pressure capilliary type, where the hell do you get a replacement?

Im had a pal of mine down tonight and he reckons Im crackers!...I dont care! LOL.
 
It only has a 1,5 kW heater!

Have you seen the video? Now, that machine boilwashes... and used way more water than current ones, one wonders why modern American machines aren't capable of that!
 
Hey Dom,

What a great first find! Looks like it has survived amazingly well, and I suspect Indesits of this vintage are way rarer than British machines.

Although it's a slow spin, I wonder if that helped keep the machine going? I'd have thought the bearings etc would get less wear than in a faster machine. Incidentally, in the late 70s my mum had a slow spinning Colston automatic, with a separate Creda spinner to get the wash as dry as possible, quite common back then!

Hope you get to find out what he has in his shed, you never know, you could earn him a few quid and make some collectors very happy!

Your collection sounds great, you must have the patience of a saint with two seventies British colour tellies! Respect is due!
 
Reply to 74simon

Yeah, his scrapyard is a real timewarp, he has car parts stuffed literally upto the rafters from the 30's to the 70's , I got a deal going with him where I buy it by the boxload, he knows I flog it on, He has piles of cast iron fireplaces,grates, ect, The owner id=s 80 years old and acts like he was 17..fit as a fiddle, his younger brother is about late 50's . They have lockups that they havent been in for years, I have to climb a massive scrapheap to get to the old sales warehouse (where most of the car parts are) and climb through a window, I have to do this because he hasn't been in there for 20 odd years and cant find the key plus theres a huge pile of scrap nearly burying the place.

I think I might know where this building is...its under another pile of scrap! . They moved a pile of scrap that had been there for 20 years and found loads of old car parts, There were 5 Rover P6 boot lids (all alloy) Morris marina axle and a complete Morris minor that had sunk to its belly, it had only 32,000 miles on the clock, the engine turned freely with the starting handle, and after an afternoon cleaning the fuel line , tank, pump, oil change, and filter cleaned the plugs and points it fired up second turn of the key....so I bought it!

As for the vintage tellys I had alot of teething problems like,the mains transformer it literally went CRACK then started a fire, luckily I jumped up and blew it out, damage was limited to the transformer...lucky I had 2 spare ones!
I pissed myself laughing one night when the picture 'fell' its like a full size picture , like a picture on the wall that slips to one side, turned out to be loose coils on the tube. My Hi-Fi is all valve and sounds superb, I have rebuilt it all and made a special power supply for the Leak preamp (185v HT DC + 6.3v LT DC)

I enjoy overcoming problems, and keeping all this vintage gear going..its almost a full time job in itself.

Im rather looking forward to doing the Indesit L5 up, I was in a local domestics shop this morning getting an interlock for a Creda and I told the old bloke about it, he informed me he had som L5,6,7 stuff but threw it about a year ago..Not good!
 
What an amazing machine.....I have never seen an L5 like that. The ones I have seen all had two dials and 3 switches. My Aunt had the L5 shown in Ricado's pic. A neighbour had a L5 that had navy blue trim and another neighbour had one with a woodgrain effect on the control panel.

You are very lucky to fine one is such good condition as Indesits did tend to rust quite badly. I am sure you are going to have great fun with it.

Paul.
 
Im sure I will have fun with it Paul! I hope that massive capacitor in the back doesnt go B..A..N..G, I will have to rig up my variac and isolation transformer and wind the voltage up slowly, I will, or should get 5 seconds notice of inpending doom, usually a creaking or an ascending 'click' from a bad capacitor, I really dont know where the hell I would get one of those from, its an oval one about 5 times bigger than modern ones with big nuts on to screw the wires down onto it. I would probably find one in a telephone exchange or railway junction box,No I wont nick one I will get a friend to'acuire' one from British rail :o).
 
done a bit of digging in the old Which magazines!

Hi Dom.

Al was spot on with his spin speed. Its a 400rpm machine rather than 380, that I thought it was.

Also have found out that your machine is an Indesit L5EGB Export, which were reported on in the January 1972 edition of Which, mentioned in 1973, reported on in November 1974, February 1976, September 1976 and was discontinued by Indesit at the start of 1977.

The images that appear in the write ups are all line drawings, as opposed to photographs, but clearly show two dials and only one option button.

The other L5 version was the L5LGB Bio, which boasted more programmes and three switches.

I honestly cannot wait to start reading your restoration progress. I am really looking forward to learning more about this unusual machine.

As Simon mentions, for the true early to mid 1970s front loading automatic washday experience, you would need a spin dryer on hand. There were still a large number of front loaders on sale with low spin speed performance, so extra spinning definately wouldnt have been unusual.

The fastest spinning front loader was the Hotpoint 1600, later the 1830, galloping along at 1100rpm, with most average and high end range machines cantering at 750rpm and low end machines trotting along at 380 to 520rpm.

The Hotpoint machine was a weird exception to the general rule and god only knows what Hotpoint were thinking when they introduced it in 1969, as nothing generally affordable would spin as fast until 1978 with the introduction of the Hoover 1100 'New Magics'.

Cant get over the pile of scrap that your machine was perched on. Had you noticed it before or was it a new arrival in the yard?
i every now and then browse through Classic Car magazine and see the photos of small, private owner breakers yards with cars in them that are more put out to pasture (another Equestrian term there - I am on a roll!) than actively scrapped. Sounds like you have got yourself one of those, rather than the normal 'drag it in', 'crush it' and 'flog it' yards.

A really great find!
Paul

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Hi Paul, I have no Idea how long this machine has been there , it wouldnt suprise me if it had been there 10 years or so, I dont think it has as it is low on corrosion, its mainly around the front access panel, I have never seen it before but they usually keep washers in the front of the yard for a few months before they eventually work their way to the end of the yard. The machines gradually get butchered as they work their way down to the end of the yard,slowly yielding their useful parts, by the time they run the carepillar thing over them they are barely a shell. Im amazed myself why it ended up 8 ft up with no dents ect. It was slap bang in the middle of a pile of machines. The photo shows it after we cleared the logics and knackered 95s out of the way.I only went up there on the off chance that there would be an oldie , It paid off allright! Its a very good yard, I sometimes go there just to look at old stuff...I invariably bring some stuff home. You wouldn't believe what they get there. I cant wait to see what machines he has in the lock-up.
When something stops selling he just locks it up and moves on to the next thing. If I could put my house slap bang in the middle of their place..I WOULD! , I would never be short of anything,

Thanks for the information on the L5EGB, I thought it was around 1969/70 I wasn't far off!. The 'Option' switch you mention has two 'Options'.... On or Off LOL! This looks to be a base model unlike the fancy ones with bio switches and chrome soapbox lids. Overall..the same machine!.
 
Hi! This is an Indesit L5 E (europa). Without Bio and soft spin button. The L5 L (luxe) was cheap, but the L5 E was cheaper!!! Have a nice work :-)

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Hi Riccardo, Thanks for posting these details up, I know which setting to put the washer on now! , Do you have any service data, or an engineers manual? Thanks!
 
Restoring

Dom you are a bloke like myself.........restoring and making good..........Brilliant find, these are wonderful machines and your one looks to be in good condition, you should have no problems working out how it goes etc.....

Bit of a valve amp fan myself :-)

Gary
 

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