A working hoover keymatic (The first Model)

[fredriksam]

Well, yes. I have a working Hovver Keymatic that i use sometimes. I,ve heard that they are hard to find, never mind in working order!

The only downside with the machine is that it makes strange noises sometimes. It didnt do that before, and sometimes it wont spin. Nevermeind, as long as it works i,m happy. Feel free to ask questions about the machine.

 

[maytagbear]

Hej!

I think you're our first Swede.

I have an internet friend on another website who is in the Tyreso district of Stockholm.

The Keymatic is an interesting machine.

Welcome.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[Unimatic1140]

Hi Fredrik and welcome to the club! Your are our first member from Sweeden I believe. Very nice Keymatic, I've never seen one before in person. Are you able to run it with the door open to see some of the action?

 

[fredriksam]

Yeah, you can actually have the door open the whole program, but i don´t think its a good idea to do. If you are not careful you can hurt yourself you know

 

[tomturbomatic]

Fredrik, welcome to the club. Anyone who has a functioning Keymatic must have a very interesting history of appliance fascination. Please share with us your appliance stories and any additional photographs of the Keymatic with the door open.
Tom

 

[fredriksam]

My camera is a little bit stupid but here is a pic of the drum anyway

 

[foraloysius]

Hello Fredrik,

Good to see you here too after our conversation on the German club. I hope you will enjoy this club, lots of nice people here. And thank you very much for the picture of your Keymatic. Yours is older than mine!

Louis

 

[jetcone]

Hi Fredrik

Welcome to Applianceville!

Nice Keymatic I wish we had those over here. My friend Mike has one in the UK he is restoring and I got to peek into the mechanism with him.
I also got to take the service manual to bed for night time reading.
Boy is the timer mechanism in these units complicated. Very complicated.

I love the dark blue tub inside.
How long have you had your machine?

Jon (Jetcone)

 

[gansky1]

Beautiful machine - what a great looking design too. I'm sure they were difficult to service based on what I heard - but who cares, the fun is worth the pain!

Welcome to the club - we'll have to put you on the list for our European AutomaticWasher.org Convention Tour!

 

[soapnsuds]

Hi Fredrik,

Welcome!
I've never seen one of those in person either. I only have a print ad for one and until I saw the ad I never knew Hoover made a washer. Thanks for the great pix.

James

 

[gizmo]

Hi Fredrik

You are very lucky to have a working Keymatic. I have one but it doesn't work, the motor is missing. Eventually I hope to restore it.
I used to have about four, of which two worked and I converted another to 12 volts DC use (for solar power). Unfortunately I gave them away when I moved house.
I have a little experience with repairing these machines, including completely dismantling and restoring one. So if you need help to diagnose or repair your machine, I am willing to do what I can. If you describe the odd noises and when they occur I might have suggestions for what may be the cause. Keymatics do made some odd noises, though, even when nothing is wrong.

I am interested that the control of your machine shows three rinses. All Keymatics made in Australia had three rinses, I thought that UK ones had four rinses. (At least later UK ones did.) Do you know where your machine was manufactured? It should say on a small metal plate on the back.

wilkommen.

Chris.

 

[fredriksam]

mm. The noises are really random. My guess is that it is the timer mechanism that "jumps" or dont follow as it should. But since it works still i,m not worried about it. That could also be the reason why it doesn´t always spin. But i just change to "only spin" and it works fine.

I checked on the backside and it says its made in uk. It has of course numbers too, but some of them are hard to see. The plate has been damaged a bit. Dont know how.

The machine was in my house when i moved in in 1983. An old old lady had lived there before.

As i understand it, this machine is from 1961. We still have the instructions too, but only in english.

A reason why i dont wash with the door opened is that we have kids. I live with a beatuiful girl and we have 2 kids. They are very lively and curious, so i mostly lock the washing room.

 

[Designgeek]

Very smart of you to keep the kids away from that machine, given the potential for injury if they try to play around.

Yes, those Keymatics are the pinnacle of a particular design philosophy, and quite impressive. Question: does the impeller rotate in the same direction as the washtub but at a faster speed, or in the opposite direction? This may have been Hoover's attempt to solve the problem of getting the back end of the load to circulate properly in an inclined-axis washtub. Very clever of them, and parts that were common to various compact Hoovers at the same time.

 

[fredriksam]

The impeler drives in the opposite direction. Its because the pulleys and the other stuff works that way.

One thing that is interresting: Newer machines (90´s-2005) has a way of "jumping" around when they are spinning. Well, not the Hoover keymatic. As i know, it has only happened like 2 times that it has get off balance. Those times it stopped by itself. The power switch went to off.

I wonder why new machines has this problems with balance, and i,m wondering too why you see many front loaders overfoam. You can see many pics on that on the webshots community. Anybody got a idea about that?

 

[gizmo]

Hi Frederik

The Keymatic has very soft suspension, so the drum inside can move around quite violently during spin but the outside of the machine doesn't even vibrate. It is very sophisticated. Such a machine would be very expensive to make today, not many people would buy it.
They don't tend to over-foam because there is a wide clearance between the inner and outer tubs. Modern machines have small gap between the drums to allow a bigger load size, the downside is that if even a little foam starts to build up, during spin the spinning drum whips up the foam into a heavy lather. Also the water level is very high compared to modern machines, so the detergent is more diluted.

If you are bothered by the noise, can you describe the noise and when it occurs?

If it is a rhythmic clicking sound when the timer advances, it is normal. In the keymatic system, every possible option is in sequence on the timer dial. The keyplate selects which of these choices are to be skipped (bypassed) and which are to operate. The timer clicks loudly as it moves through the bypassed cycles.

If that is not the noise, please describe it, I'll try to help.

Chris.

 

[fredriksam]

Its not that noise i mean. It´s a more "heavy" sound if you know what i mean. Just like something is loose in it.

Do you have any idea why it doesn´t always spin? The drum just moves slowly and then the timer bypass to end. The drum moves in the spin direction though. It happens mostly on program 3 (whites and coloureds). I never use the white or soiled whites program.

 

[fredriksam]

If anyone wants to see it.. Here is a pic of the keyplate

 

[fredriksam]

Update

See there. Now it sounds as it should again. As a friend of mine said "sometimes the gremlins take over the machines for a while". Of course he didnt meant that litterary, but i got the point there. I checked the pump and found some "garbage". Could have been that making noises. Who knows?

Sadly, my digital camera has moved to the "not working land". When it works again i maybe could put up more pics if anyone want.

 

[westyslantfront]

hi Frederik....welcome to our wonderful club...the keymatic looks fascinating.....sure wish i could see it in action.....

ross roberts in tucson, arizona, usa