Interestingly enough, the center post seals on both the belt drive and direct drive are completely interchangeable, even the tub seal is the same. Whirlpool shortened the center post seal in 1978, unfortunately lots of the later belt drives (even some direct drives) had issues where the center post seals would fail, water could possibly make it’s way to the transmission and to quote Gordon: “Would spill it’s guts”. All Whirlpool machines built before 1978 (1977 and older) have the full height center post, usually the bearings and seals would last a good while before needing replacement.