Avocado Maytag Set

[washerlover]

I'm going to call on this set and hopefully pick up this weekend! Any guess on the vintage? The washer seems to be a step down from my almond A608...

http://redding.craigslist.org/app/2751926053.html

 

[revvinkevin]

VERY Nice Todd!

 

 

Good luck and CONGRATS!   They are purdy, can't wait to see better photos of them!

 

I don't know how long Maytag offered "avocado green" (up till '77 I think?).   They have the gold trim on the control panel and that started in 1975 when they changed from the light blue trim, among other changes.   So my guess is between 1975 and 1977.

 

Here is a pic from the ad for reference.

 

Kevin

[this post was last edited: 12/15/2011-00:37]

 

[whirlykenmore78]

It's Avocado time

I'm picking up a 1977-78 Kenmore set in avocado from ril70sman this Sunday.

 

[stan]

Had a set

like this about 10 years ago! mine where 74s copper/brown. Both where workhorses! I do remember the washer was slow to agitate (first load only) on a cold morning (basement) Other than that, no problems!!
Enjoy

Stan

 

[mrb627]

Ebay

There was a MINT set on Ebay a while back. Kept getting relisted over and over. Not sure if they are still there or not. Too bad the dryer was gas, I like the Avocado.

Malcolm

 

[macboy91si]

"Heavy Duty" (Sticker Optional)

Hi, the washer is an A207, std cap with 2 speeds, and the dryer appears to be a DE606 HOH.

 

Kevin I think you are right with the shading, these machines are probably 75 models, which would have been some of the last of the shaded cabinets. I say the washer is an A207, a late one with the gold trimmed panel. The A208, which only had gold trimmed panels,  had different naming for the water levels as well as 4 temp setting buttons. The dryer is a DE606, HOH machine. The 606 and 806 were the only machines with electronic only controls and this machine lacks a backlit panel making it a DE606. The way to tell in this case the 606 from the newer 608 is the smaller door and lack of buttons to the right of the timer. The DE608 would be a big-load machine as well as having a bank of buttons to the right that the HOH model 606's lacked. These are both late models, the DE606 was only in production with the gold trimmed panel for what a year?

 

Nice set, I like the color as well, but seems like I've seen them on C/L before in that exact setting...

 

-Tim

 

[combo52]

HEAVY DUTY STICKERS

Yes you are correct Tim the HD stickers were added at the dealer. When I was working at the MT home appliance store around 1975 our MT sales rep came in one day and before I saw what he was doing he put these silly stickers on about a dozen machines in our showroom. At the time I though they looked cheap and I thought surly everyone knew MTs were heavy duty well built machines.

 

But it seems that salesmen for other brands were making points by showing that thier machines said HD on them and MTs did not, [ they could have just showed how slowly they agitated with a large load on a cold morning, LOL ] So thats how the HEAVY DUTY stickers first got on MT W & Ds. 

 

Maytag continued to sell avocado and copper-tone washers and dryers after 1976 but they lost the shading after this time and just like all other US appliance manufacturers had agreed to do.

 

[bajaespuma]

When they went to the gold escutcheons with the gold dials, they started making the BOL's with chromed trim on the panels, so they looked more like the rest of the line. I've always said that I thought Avocado looked best on a pair of 'Tags and these are no exception. I have an earlier pair in "Spanish Avocado" and I love them. I have some friends who are kitchen designers and I'm always challenging them to come up with good contemporary designs using Avocado. They think I'm nuts but they keep coming up with clever color coordination's. Hope you get them; you'll be happy.

 

[macboy91si]

Tags

Only the A106 / D106  was non-chromed, and I thought that to be true since the introduction of the 06' series in 66. When they went to the gold panels, the 106 stayed non-chromed and retained the blue trimmed panel.

 

-Tim

 

[beekeyknee]

Avocado Maytags

I have an avocado Maytag from 1979. I think, as someone suggested in Robert's post, it was a machine that got past quality control. It took me a year to get that b#%!h balanced. Everything about it suggested it had low usage, especially when I went to look at it, pulled on the agitator and it popped right off. Later I discovered that the concrete ring on the wash basket top was low on one side which caused it to shake all the time. A combination of lead weights glued to the basket top with JB Weld and some lead weights strapped to the counter balance weight on the trans. finally fixed it.

Looking back on it now I probably should have loosened the spanner nut and turned the wash basket to effect a repair, but I'm not touching it again.

I wonder who put that HEAVY DUTY sign on that machine. That's not supposed to be there. I don't think that's factory. If anyone tries to take it off they should be careful. It could pull the paint off. I'd use a hair drier, a pair of tweezers and a bright light. If it leaves any sticky; an very light duty solvent. If the paint has yellowed or is brighter underneath I might stick it back down. Sometimes you have to be careful with things like that.

 

[beekeyknee]

Slow Agitation On A Cold Morning

Stan,
It's possible that after 35+ years the transmission fluid had thickened. I just rebuilt a 35 year old transmission and the fluid was as thick as molasses. I'm going to post my rebuild. I know I keep saying that but I will do it soon. If I don't get it done before Christmas, I'll do it in January.

 

[beekeyknee]

Oh, I see. The Heavy Duty (Sticker Optional) was in the subject drift. I kept reading the text thinking, Who in the hell mentioned that sticker?. Duh.

 

[washerlover]

My late 70's Maytag washer does the same thing now in the Winter...slow agitation at first, then it speeds up after (what I think) is the motor warming up? My machines are in an unheated pool house so I just thought it was the cold...not that it gets very cold here in the Winter (highs in the 50s, lows in the 40s), but I still observe slower agitation in the 'Tag when its cold.

 

[roto204]

Tranny oil

Methinks it's thick transmission oil that accounts for the slow take-off.

 

[beekeyknee]

I've heard of that but I think it would have to be colder than 40 to make that much difference. It's probably thick transmission oil. It's supposed to be a light tan/green color. After 30 years it turns dark brown, gets real thick and stinks.

One of the worst parts is that thick oil doesn't go into the agitator drive shaft orifice like it should and that shaft doesn't get lubed.

Tearing one down isn't fun at all. I'd get cut and pinched and sometimes I'd scream.

But it was nice to see that vigorous action when it was done.

Some guy on here is doing it. The keeper pin in his agitator drive shaft pinion gear sheared off. He got the stem mount off and the whole shaft came out. What a mess. I can't imagine the force it would take to shear that pin off. Maybe it's supposed to break. I don't know. But it seems like something must have really been wrong.

Here's the color it was.

 

[beekeyknee]

Here's the color it's supposed to be.

 

[stan]

so

olive oil color "good" molasses color "BAD" LOL

 

[combo52]

SLOW STARTING MTs

The oil in these older MTs 1980s and earlier was always dark brown from the factory. I just went into our parts room and opened a sealed bottle of MT oil [ older stock ] and it is dark brown. We used to always make fun of the oil MT used back when we started rebuilding MTs in the late 1960s - the 1970s as we would buy the genuine oil from MT and it looked like recycled sewage sludge. MT changed to more normal looking oil  with the interduction of the orbital transmissions on the helical drive washers.

 

Yes the oil may get a little thicker as it ages and if it is cold. But as Brain stated the main problem is oil does not get up to the agitator shaft bearings. This coupled with a little water getting into this bearing area over many years use causes the shaft and  bearings to get very stiff and eventually size. If you have a sluggish transmission in your MT you can sometimes help this by turning the machine on its side and further elevating the bottom so the oil gets into this area [ the longer you store it this way the better ].

 

The pin in the output gear is not designed to break, nor is the nylon pinion gear designed to break under heavy loads [ its nylon to make it quieter and it wears longer than steel would in this application ]. Yes plastic can be a good thing, if it wasn't for plastic many washers parts would fail much sooner, look at how plastic improved the MT water pumps. The poly-pump almost  eliminated pump replacements on MT washers.

 

I have never seen any automatic washer or dryer that has any parts that were designed to break under  overloading or other abuse conditions. If you severely overload a helical drive MT washer all thats likely to happen is putting the motor out on the overload or maybe if the belt is worn you might damage the main drive belt. 

 

[arbilab]

"Slow agitate at first on cold days." Sounds nostalgic now. I had a used Avo Tag just like it. I ran it 10 years, gave it to a coworker whose washer quit, it ran another year before the motor seized.

 

[stan]

nostalgic

yes!

The more I think back on this, I remember on a cold A.M I would set the water on a low level, with hot fill and let it agitate with no clothes in it for a few min, to work itself out, and then reset, and add the normal load! Funny the thing we forget, or remember in this case!
Now I have a Maytag EL2, I'm sure the transmission oil in it, is even thicker, but it's certainly not slow to agitate! And I don't want to even think about changing the oil in that thing OMG

 

[beekeyknee]

Brown Gear Oil

Didn't remember that about the old type Maytag oil, John. In the back of my mind I kind of remember people talking about how early Maytag oil was that color. I wonder if it had something to do with the GL rating? I remember seeing dark brown oil in gear boxes on old time farm and lawn equipment because of the bronze phosphor bearings and washers in them. Even some older car transmissions had b/p parts that needed low GL ratings.

The lower down the GL ratings, the less detergents and EP additives I think. I don't know if they even made EP multi-grade detergent oils back then. Oil refinement and production has changed drastically in the last forty or fifty years. I don't ever remember seeing any of these fancy oils back then. Gear oil for farm equipment always seemed to come out of the can dark brown, thick and stinky. I remember five gallon cans of it in barns and the shop my Dads friend owned had 55 gallon drums of the stuff.

Maybe Maytag used it because it was common and more of the standard back then? I don't know. I know thick oils keep straight cut gears quieter. It was probably a lot cheaper than more refined oils. I remember when I was little that that was just the way gear oil was and no one ever questioned it. Maybe the passage of time and our advanced refinement of gear oil has changed the way we view things. What do you think?

 

[washerlover]

So how difficult is it to change the transmission oil? I've never tried it on any of my machines...

 

[rp2813]

Sluggish Cold Starts

Our ever-trusty harvest 206 lived in the garage.  When it was cold out there (mid-50's or lower, I'd say) the first load would start out under slow agitation, but after a few twists agitation would quickly pick up speed and hit its normal stride. 

 

[beekeyknee]

Change Transmission Oil?

Todd...Oh dear. On any machine I've ever seen it involves tearing down the whole machine and rebuilding practically from the ground up. It's satisfying to see it finished, but it sure is a lot of work. If you have a machine you're fond of and it seems to be struggling, grunting and groaning, you might want to consider it. Otherwise it might die on you. Do research before you start to see what's involved, what you will need and what's available.

 

[bpetersxx]

John's explaination of seized shaft and berings

I bet that is what happened on my Harvest gold 806 I ended up having to have it go to the washer hospital

I also have a 806s in avocado that is sluggish in agitation but it is in the basement laundry studio

Pics of the machines are on the site here

 

[garyl]

slow Maytags

I used to get Maytags that were slow to agitate, then I also noticed that they were slow to spin. After running them for a while, they started up faster on each cycle. I found that the springs on the motor mount were fatigued, and the nylon rollers in the mount were worn. The springs just did not have enough strength to pull the motor outward hard enough. Usualy the belt was glazed over too. I would replace the springs, rollers, belt, lube the mount, and it would work great. Hope this helps.

 

[combo52]

MAYTAG TRANSMISSION OIL

Brain I do think you are correct about MT using a heaver weight oil as they used all straight cut gears and the heavier weight oil will keep the noise down. MT also always used a fiber or nylon gear for the pinion gear to keep noise down, where as WP and most other companies used helical cut pinion gears in thier transmissions.

 

[stan]

I wonder if

a step by step photo line up is here, somewhere on the site, of someone doing a oil change ect?

 

[beekeyknee]

Step By Step Photo Documenting

There has been some photo documentation on here before. Don't remember the thread #s right now or how complete they were. It's boring reading if you're not interested or planning to do it.

I will be posting my documentation when I get home from Christmas. I've got to try and trim it down without leaving out anything terribly important.