1987 Lady Kenmore 90 Series! Project/Restoration

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I'd be concerned about leaking developing at the tub/centerpost donut seal, what with the rusting in-progress there.  Neighbors of my parents called me several months ago with a substantial leak from their 1998 WP.  I found a hefty flow coming from under the tub.  Did not disassemble to check (they opted to replace the machine) but I suspect centerpost rust-through.

It also doesn't look good at the top seal.

Close-up pics of those areas would clarify.

The agitator splines are good.
 
If it was one of my machines, I would go ahead and pull the outer tub and replace the tub seal. I would polish the rust off of the center post first which makes it much easier to remove the tub. Then you can see what the area where the seal is actually looks like. If it’s not too bad I would sand the remaining area of the center post and coat it. If it’s too bad and you want to have this machine for the long run, I would replace center post tub support assembly, which comes with new bearings already installed, and also a new basket drive. Support part number is w10863713(63740) and basket drive is w10820043(285792). Congrats on a great kenmore find and good luck!
 
I got the plastic tub removed, along with the tub seal, it held up pretty well, (of course before I began wedging it with a flathead) I'm going to be replacing the seal, and I want your opinion on the centerpost, I used a sand sponge to try and clean it. Still a bit of rust on it thats hard to get off, what would be the solution to that? And once its nice and clean what should I use to coat it?

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More important than the outside of the center-post is the condition of the spin tube and the agitator shaft, both look rusted. The first thing I do is take rags and clean both these shafts above the seals, and if there is rust on these items and especially if it extends below the seal lip the machine will not last long at all unless these seals and shafts are replaced.

 

John L.
 
Update #4

Hey guys, I've been a little busy for a while. But here's an update.
I finally bought myself a spanner wrench online to make life easier! And I got a hold of my uncles old washing machine which is a Lady Kenmore 90 series as well! Which has been out of service for 15-20 years. I took the inner tub out of that washer and it looks a lot better than the one from my washer! What do you think? Also here are some closer pics of the spin tube and shaft after cleaning them with a rag. I may leave them as is for now, if problems come along down the road I'll get them taken care of. And the lid switch is broken and needs to be replaced. This project will now be in full swing since I got the tools and parts necessary.

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Hey guys so I got the inner tub cleaned, I'll get pictures of it later, but I noticed there's just little rust on some of the holes inside the tub, and a part of the white paint missing on one area. Is there any I can touch it up so it looks nice? If so, what should I use, and would there be any steps for it??
 
Tripple dispenser especially the detergent dispenser.

Hey yall, i have a washer model just like this and another washer that is the same but it is the kenmore elite version that has the triple dispensers similar to the calypso washers. I need help with customizing something on the older one, the lady kenmore i have which is not getting only hot and only cold in the tripple dispensers mainly the detergent dispenser. The reason why i am wanting to do this is because when i use a hot or cold water wash, the detergent dispenser flushes with warm no matter what. that means if i pause it a bunch of times when it is filling for the wash because of me remembering things at least several times that i forgot to add to the wash load originally, i would stop the washer each time i do so. When i keep having doing that a bunch of times, the warm water will start filling into the machine through the detergent dispenser each time i start it back up on a wash cycle fill and it will of curse give me warm water every time even if i have the water temperature switch selected on hot only or cold only. I need help to find what wires to work with for splicing and wiring in to make it flush with what temperature i have selected on the temperature switch. My 1999 kenmore elite which has the newer triple dispensers like the claypso has flushes the temperature switch selected water temperature through the detergent dispenser. Why not my older ldy kenmore. It should be the same as my kenmore elite. That means i will need help working in the wiring diagram to find out which wires to splice and wire cap with. I appreciate any help towards making that cosomization/repair work. I trued calling a friend and he was telling me just leave it as is. But thats not why i need to do this. Just because it is filling through a dispenser does not mean it needs to not give me the temperature i have told the machine to give me. I may have misspelled words because i typing hates me for whatever readon do bare with me as well.
 
First triple dispenser, direct drive washers

These machines had a different main inlet valve. All the water that supplied to the dispensers is always warm. There’s no way to electrically rewire this. If this bothers you when you’re doing a hot wash, turn off the cold water so the washer fills for wash if you’re doing a cold wash Turn off the hot water.

And of course don’t turn the machine on and off start it and let it go through the cycle. Otherwise, as you found out, it will keep adding water through the dispenser for a minute or two each time.

John
 
Interesting

As elegant as Kenmore's approach of having dedicated valves for the dispensers is, they should have placed the flood switch in the combined neutral of the dispenser valves vs the main incoming line. If someone kept setting the knob from the start of the cycle the machine could ever fill tripping the flood switch leaving the user with a tub full of water and no way to drain it out. Not very smart IMO. I wonder why they did it that way.
 
Early Kenmore, triple dispensers

Not really likely to overflow even at full water level you would have to set it through 10 more dispense Ashens to get the machine to overflow, and since this machine will operate with the lid open, you would see that you’re causing a mess and it wouldn’t be a big flood even if you did it, this would be like standing there and holding the little fingertip water dispenser models where you could wet an item for spot scrubbing, so long that the tub would fill up and overflow I don’t think it’s ever happened.

Reply number 34, hi Dominic, it’s actually very easy to change the transmission and a direct drive washer. It was the easiest modern washer ever to change the transmission in the only other machine that came close were the GE filter flows were quite easy to do it transmission swap

Probably the next easiest machine would be a whirlpool belt drive washer. They weren’t too bad to change. To change the transmission in most other machines were so labor-intensive it was almost never done generally when you had a Westinghouse WCI, Norge and several other machines transmission fail It was the end of the washer 90% of the time nobody wanted to pay for the labor for changing a transmission even Maytag you generally never changed the transmission on thankfully, for Maytag, they didn’t have much trouble in the early years of the machines life.

John
 
5 Years Later..

Hey guys, hope you are all well. I still have this machine, sadly the last time I posted about this machine was the last time I had touched it. College life and other things got in the way. However, today I decided to make my move and put it back together!

So far, I had re-installed the outer tub, as well as the brackets/suspension springs. I also put the porcelain tub with the drive block and spanner back in.

I put some water into the machine as the drain pump completely dried out, I plugged it in and tested the spin cycle. Drained good, and it appeared to spin good, until it stopped, and made a buzzer-type noise, I also appear to have an issue with the brake perhaps?

I wanna guess this is some kind of overload safety this machine has? Any expert advice with these 2 problems will help!

Here's a video I took:

 
It looks like the basket drive block, came loose and disengaged from the spin shaft, make sure the drive block is down on the two little metal ears at the top of the spin shaft and tighten the lock nut ring tightly and see if it still does this.

There is no buzzer or overload system. That's causing that noise on this washer.

John
 

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