1964 Frigidaire Custom Deluxe washer

[swestoyz]

Part Two - the little things

So, it's been several days since my initial post. Time to get at it before this is lost in the wind!

With everything apart and cleaned it was time to tend to a few of the little things before putting the transmission back together.

First on the list was swapping out the 5431073 pump seal. The old seal was shot and showed signs of water seeping past.

Frigidaire offered this handy tool (Robinair 12472) to press out the old seal and install the new. I used some Permatex Number 2 sealer on the hard surfaces, as well as the paper gasket included with the seal. I did end up having to coat the inside of the pump housing with some RTV, post seal install, due to some of the No. 2 sealer seeping around the seal as my thought was I wanted it to seal around the crumbled surface of the housing. If I were to do it again I would have used a much smaller amount of RTV or The Right Stuff along the flange of the seal and smoothed it out over the housing with my finger.[this post was last edited: 8/23/2021-21:16]

 

[swestoyz]

Next up was swapping out the original shielded bearings within the two drive pulleys. The bearings could be removed with a set of sockets and a soft mallet, or even a press, but I found that the seal remover/installer tool for the pump seal worked perfectly for this task. The pulleys have a shoulder machined on one side where the bearing sits against, make sure to drive them out on the opposite side.

The measurements for these bearings are in inches - 0.5 in Bore Dia., 1.125 in Outside Dia (thanks, Bud!), bearing number 1616 2RS PRX, Grainger 35JC45. I suspect the bearing within the bottom of the motor housing is the same size but I was unable to get the Delco installed collar off the motor to swap the bearing out.

The manual provides instruction for installing the pulleys on the motor shaft. After the initial spacer is installed, put a dab of red Loctite on the shaft and slide the larger of the two pulleys (drive) up against the spacer. Next, the helix/key is installed along with the clutch. the manual indicates that there is no specific direction the helix needs to be placed on the shaft. Lastly, the smaller of the two pulleys (agitate) is installed with a dab of red Loctite, as well.

 

[swestoyz]

Housing Seals

On a previous post of Bud's regarding replacement Multimatic parts, he suggested using some 3/32 square cord stock to make new rubber gaskets for the transmission housing.

While I did go and buy some cord stock I decided to take it a step further to see if I could find some square o-rings that would work for this task. Sure enough, I found one that fits! Sadly I wasn't able to source this through Grainger, but McMaster had these readily available.

Square-Profile Oil-Resistant Buna-N O-Ring, 3/32 Fractional Width, Dash Number 156, McMaster number 4061T212, pack of 25. https://www.mcmaster.com/4061T212/

So, would I push my luck trying to find the square gasket replacement for the spherical bearing cover on the lower housing? Not at all.

Square-Profile Oil-Resistant Buna-N O-Ring. 3/32 Fractional Width, Dash Number 128, McMaster number 4061T174, pack of 100. https://www.mcmaster.com/4061T174/

Both fit perfectly and I have not seen a drop of oil come through from either. If anyone is needing a set for a future rebuild, shoot me a message and I'd be happy to drop some in the mail (2 ea. of dash 156, 1 ea. of dash 128).

Bud also provided a seal PN for the upper housing lip seal. Make sure to swap this out before putting the transmission back together, but also take care not to plug the drain hole between the seal and the housing with any excess sealer.

Dual Lip with Spring Rotary Shaft Seal with 40 mm Inside Dia. and 62 mm Outside Dia, Grainger number 53XK04. I forgot to take a photo of the new seal installed.

 

[swestoyz]

With most of the transmission cleaned up it was time to reassemble the bits and pieces. First up was the installation of a new, sealed, upper housing bearing. Doesn't that look so much better than before?

Radial Ball Bearing, Double Sealed, 30 mm Bore Dia., 55 mm Outside Dia., bearing number 6006 2RS/C3 PRX, Grainger number 35HZ80

Next up, after the muffler seal is installed below the bearing housing, it is time to install the mechanism support. I opted to throw some Permatex No 2 on the threads, similar to what would be done with a Unimatic. The manual doesn't call for this but a bit of extra protection from water intrusion isn't going to hurt anything. Tighten the seal assembly nut with the oil filter wrench and flatten a tab within one of the four recesses in the nut.

Flip the assembly over to install the upper housing, the NTTWBU brake assembly (new to the washer, but used), spacer, torque spring, key, deacceleration shoes assembly. Coat all surfaces with oil during the installation. There is a future opportunity to highlight these steps greater detail in a later post (insert ominous music here).

With the lower mechanism plate and bearing assembly in place and the nut set with the washer flattened over the nut, the wobble plate assembly can be installed on the agitator shaft.

You can set the torque against the spherical bearing by twisting the outer ring to the point where it begins to drag slightly while moving the bearing in a circular motion. I did coat all surfaces of the bearing with oil to help get the proper drag.

At this point the lower housing can be installed over the wobble plate shaft and fastened to the upper housing. Done! (or so I thought!)

 

[swestoyz]

With the transmission assembly completed it was time to tackle the rust. And there was plenty of it in the outer tub. Along with the cleaning of the outer tub, several hours were spent meticulously removing all the old soap and lint from the wash tub side supports. The outer tub top was also cleaned up during this phase. The base of the outer tub was coated in some POR-15.

 

[swestoyz]

Now with the tub assemblies looking much better it was time to start putting the washer back together. While the 7522375 pump impeller was salvageable the seal portion of the impeller needed some TLC. The original seal backing behind the bronze seat was removed and a new 5433974 gasket was installed with some RTV, along with a new 5433973 bronze seat. With all new mechanical hardware on the pump end of the equation we were certain to be leak free.

With the mechanism and motor installed in the cabinet, the pump assembly could continue. I put a light coat of anti-seize on the motor shaft to prevent the impeller from freezing to the shaft in case it needed to be disassembled. Prior to all of this a new set of belts were installed - Grainger Dayton 3L280 for the upper/drive pulley, and a Grainger Dayton 3L320 for the lower/agitation pulley. a new 7528577 pump housing gasket was installed.

With the bottom buttoned it, it was time to fill it with oil and adjust the belts! I ended up making my own belt adjustment tool, which was crafted using a mending brace from Menards, cut to size, and part of a cutting board for the outer section. a 5" carriage bolt was originally used on the first version, along with a wing nut, similar to the original Robinair tool 12618.

More about adjusting belts on a Multimatic will come.

 

[swestoyz]

With the bottom side done the machine was flipped over and the top seal was attended to. The bronze seat was refaced, per instructions from Bud, using some 1000 grit paper. The bronze seat was installed on the tub with a new gasket and some RTV.

The new 5439025 seal assembly needs to be pressed into the seal nut far enough that the upper ridge needs to be just below the top of the housing nut, if you are just replacing the bellows seal and not using a full 6591465 seal assembly. If the seal is not pressed in properly the inner race of the seal will ride higher than the bushing and will rub against the bottom of the tub, producing a "swish swish" noise during spin.

With the seal assembly taking care of all new SS hardware was used to install the mechanism to the outer tub.

 

[swestoyz]

The original pulsator and 63/64 column were in sorry shape. So, rather than send the machine off with a droopy pulsator and a column that wouldn't hold a cap, I was able to install a used 1-18 pulsator in the machine, using a bushing made from some 3/4" PEX line, along with a nice conditioned Jet Action agitator. This seemed to work really well and provided the correct spacing between the tub and the pulsator.

Once I determined everything was going to work, RTV was applied to the top of the a NOS water bellows (NOS oil bellows were also installed), on top of the pulsator/bushing, and a bit more around the threads over the vinyl gasket. While Bud does provide some wise guidance on omitting this as it can causing leaking between this gasket and the pulsator, I wanted the vinyl surface against the Jet Action agitator base. Knowing that the RTV would keep water at bay I felt this was a great combination of parts that would last a long time.

One of the last solutions I had to come up with was trying to mend the out of balance lever. While it isn't elegant, it works! I used a mending brace from Menards and some SS hardware to fasten the brace to what remained of the lever and an stainless cotter pin to hold the lever in place. [this post was last edited: 8/23/2021-22:27]

 

[swestoyz]

One of the final things needed was to recalibrate the timer dial to the timer itself. With that done I could do some testing of the belt tensioning using a Kill-A-Watt meter. The Dayton belts were producing the right amount of slip/tension, and were within range of what the manual called for for wattage during agitation and spin! The belt adjustment tool was a HUGE help during this process.

During testing the nice but used Jet Action agitator had signs of early cone hop, so I used one of the square o-rings for the mechanism housing to act as a shim between the two cones. This worked perfectly!

Lastly, the originally installed water valve was rebuilt with new seats and stainless hardware. It was now time to test the fruits of my labor!

 

[swestoyz]

So, how did things turn out?

Poorly.

The water valve was leaking all over the place (even though it had passed the leak test in the sink), but even worse, the mechanism was spinning during pulsation. How could this be??

 

[swestoyz]

While looking through the service manual, GM provided some hints that the issue was probably the brake. The NTTWBU brake assembly (new to the washer, but used) was put together from three different machines and it was quite possible that the clips had become too weak to hold the mechanism in place.

At this point, it was late May and I was DONE with the machine. I pushed it back into the workshop and let Gary know that I would now need to hunt for a replacement brake and get back to the machine when the time was right.

And with that, I'll leave everyone in anticipation of what happens next! Did I throw in the towel? Does it magically find a new repair person to fix the problems? Does a fellow club member come to the rescue?

Stay tuned!

Ben

 

[abcomatic]

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[sfh074]

Brake clips .....

The brake clips are made of spring steel .... a higher carbon steel and heat treated. One thing I did on every brake rebuild, I bent used clips closed so that the open ends just touched. Then heated them up with a torch to glowing orange hot and dropped them in 30 wt motor oil to quench. I did this to rejuvenate them and renew the temper if for some reason the steel had weakened over time or use. A lot of these springs I had to renew since plenty of them were found bent because of rusted brakes .... and I didn't have the luxury of obtaining nos clips. To date the renewed clips are still going strong and hold the tub tight during agitation.

Bud - Atlanta

 

[sfh074]

Upper housing lip seal .....

This seal comes glued in place by GM. The old ones are tough to remove and after removal you can see the glue they used. I had a new one to fail. I always glued the new ones in, but the first one popped out while the rebuilt washer was in use. Since that failure, I now take a small blunt punch and peen over the top edge in 5 places evenly spaced apart to hold the lip seal in place and prevent it from ever popping out of the recess. Just a bit of extra prevention and the other 4 I did the way have stayed put. You probably could omit the glue and simply peen the edge and get the same result.

Bud - Atlanta