An open letter to the club and particularly to the Hands-on members regarding the difficulties faced when rebuilding our gems.
5/8/2007
Tonight after 3 months of diligent work I face a 1955 Bendix Combo springing leaks like a wounded battleship.
I remember facing this senario 25 years ago and deciding then to give up on front loaders as too complex. At the time this decision was reached due to in large part to inexperience in our craft.
Today times and experience have changed but the challenges of the front loader haven’t.
Today after searching all that time I have found door boots, pump parts, pump seals, cointraps and seals. Today I am well armed with rubber!
I realize my best working front loaders are the ones I have not really touched. They came to me in very good working condition and only needed electrical or cosmetic repair, nothing as serious as water flowing out underneath across the floor.
So unlike all the Top loaders I have completely torn down and rebuilt from the ground up, the front loaders resist, they do not share the ease of a top loader restoration in my book. A lot of my Top loaders have run, well some now 25 years without incident. There are no front loaders in that category in my collection.
These machines I am learning all over again are not the easy ones.
Tonight I took a close look at the complexity.
A top loader tub may have up to 4 seals in it,
pump join,
tub bearing & shaft,
bleach dispenser,
lint filter recirculation.
A front loader like the Combo can have up to 12 seals,
pump join,
lint trap join (2),
upper fill join
upper condenser join,
lower condenser join,
heater box join (2),
door boot to tub join.
door boot to door join ,
coin trap join
bearing seals.
In auto mechanics there is an old saw, “if the seal ain’t leakin’ leave it alone.” However the medium of contact in autos is oil, lots of it. Seals love oil and hate water!
But with washers this is often never true, since the medium of contact is hot water & caustic soda. You often find if the motor works, the tub leaks, if the tub is dry, then the motor or bearings are shot.
With an average of 12 seals, by the law of averages, something has got to give there.
So I write tonight with the experience that I have yet not mastered the front loader. A totally torn down and rebuilt front loader still remains just out of my reach.
The first water test, there was water gushing from the heater box and the cointrap.
At the second water test the repairs to the heater box held tonight beautifully, the cointrap is better but not out of the woods yet.
However to repair the heater box I had to disturb 4 more seals.
Tonight’s challenge: 6 leaks > 2 condenser tube leaks, 1 cointrap leak, a new drain hose leak, a new drip around the original door seal to tub and one around the door seal to door for a total of 6.
It feels like I am slipping backwards.
The door seal may not be a fair count as it never got tested in the first water test as the water level never rose that high because of the gushing cointrap.
Does anyone have experience they would like to input here? Have you found the front loader to be actually easier?
I do have one front loader that does work mostly, but that took 16 years to get up and run as John L can attest too.
Again that machine had major holes in the outer tub whose repairs have held beautifully. But now oddly “mechanical solenoid death” plagues its operation. Solenoid after solenoid keeps dying and they are all buried deep inside the machine. Never seen that in a top loader.
There is no top loader I have that took more than 7 months to restore.
My hats are off to Greg N. & Jeff L and John E. who have entire machines or collections running from total rebuilds they did.
I know Robert is still struggling with his Kenmore Combo and its rubber troubles.
I conclude that over all front loaders are much harder to restore than top loaders. Beginners should not be discouraged if they are tackling a front loader and should be encouraged to tackle top loaders first.
I think to tackle a front loader takes a lot of relentless determination and devotion to the machine! And this makes me a beginner all over again!
Ahh, the chase is still on!
Jon
5/8/2007
Tonight after 3 months of diligent work I face a 1955 Bendix Combo springing leaks like a wounded battleship.
I remember facing this senario 25 years ago and deciding then to give up on front loaders as too complex. At the time this decision was reached due to in large part to inexperience in our craft.
Today times and experience have changed but the challenges of the front loader haven’t.
Today after searching all that time I have found door boots, pump parts, pump seals, cointraps and seals. Today I am well armed with rubber!
I realize my best working front loaders are the ones I have not really touched. They came to me in very good working condition and only needed electrical or cosmetic repair, nothing as serious as water flowing out underneath across the floor.
So unlike all the Top loaders I have completely torn down and rebuilt from the ground up, the front loaders resist, they do not share the ease of a top loader restoration in my book. A lot of my Top loaders have run, well some now 25 years without incident. There are no front loaders in that category in my collection.
These machines I am learning all over again are not the easy ones.
Tonight I took a close look at the complexity.
A top loader tub may have up to 4 seals in it,
pump join,
tub bearing & shaft,
bleach dispenser,
lint filter recirculation.
A front loader like the Combo can have up to 12 seals,
pump join,
lint trap join (2),
upper fill join
upper condenser join,
lower condenser join,
heater box join (2),
door boot to tub join.
door boot to door join ,
coin trap join
bearing seals.
In auto mechanics there is an old saw, “if the seal ain’t leakin’ leave it alone.” However the medium of contact in autos is oil, lots of it. Seals love oil and hate water!
But with washers this is often never true, since the medium of contact is hot water & caustic soda. You often find if the motor works, the tub leaks, if the tub is dry, then the motor or bearings are shot.
With an average of 12 seals, by the law of averages, something has got to give there.
So I write tonight with the experience that I have yet not mastered the front loader. A totally torn down and rebuilt front loader still remains just out of my reach.
The first water test, there was water gushing from the heater box and the cointrap.
At the second water test the repairs to the heater box held tonight beautifully, the cointrap is better but not out of the woods yet.
However to repair the heater box I had to disturb 4 more seals.
Tonight’s challenge: 6 leaks > 2 condenser tube leaks, 1 cointrap leak, a new drain hose leak, a new drip around the original door seal to tub and one around the door seal to door for a total of 6.
It feels like I am slipping backwards.
The door seal may not be a fair count as it never got tested in the first water test as the water level never rose that high because of the gushing cointrap.
Does anyone have experience they would like to input here? Have you found the front loader to be actually easier?
I do have one front loader that does work mostly, but that took 16 years to get up and run as John L can attest too.
Again that machine had major holes in the outer tub whose repairs have held beautifully. But now oddly “mechanical solenoid death” plagues its operation. Solenoid after solenoid keeps dying and they are all buried deep inside the machine. Never seen that in a top loader.
There is no top loader I have that took more than 7 months to restore.
My hats are off to Greg N. & Jeff L and John E. who have entire machines or collections running from total rebuilds they did.
I know Robert is still struggling with his Kenmore Combo and its rubber troubles.
I conclude that over all front loaders are much harder to restore than top loaders. Beginners should not be discouraged if they are tackling a front loader and should be encouraged to tackle top loaders first.
I think to tackle a front loader takes a lot of relentless determination and devotion to the machine! And this makes me a beginner all over again!
Ahh, the chase is still on!
Jon
