1966 Kenmore Commerical Washer
Cool save Marty, that has to be a very rare machine today, even in its day Sears did not get much of the coin-op machine sales.
I would bet that the switch for water temperature was supposed to be a knob and someone replaced it with a toggle switch, it would be easy to see if you check the parts list. The round medallion on the left side had been used on basic home models since the mid 1950s, very cool.
Gordon that is indeed the gray double coating on the wash basket, that was a really good coating that they used and the ones that we saw in the early 80s also had this extra coat on the inside of the outer tubs, we should order some of these tubs, LOL.
I still have a customer that has a pair of mid 80s KM commercial washer & dryer in a small 6 unit apartment building near Dupont Circle in NW Washington DC. I get a call every few years to fix something on them. It is usually a problem with one of the coin slides or complaints about the speed of the gas dryer because of it having a 30 foot long vent, but the machines have had surprisingly few problems.
Out of balance BD KMs, if the machine is properly installed and leveled it should seldom ever trip the OOBS. I always thought it interesting that WP built millions of BD washers for Sears with an OOBS and millions of WP branded washers and only a few WP machines ever ever came with an OOBS, and those were all TOL machines before 1962. In reality the OOBS was just an unnecessary sales gimmick that Sears tried to convince its customers was necessary, I must have removed several hundred of them from Sears washers.
