Bradford find

[countryford]

I was scrolling through Facebook Marketplace and found an ad for a barn cleanout. The first picture is one of the pictures in the original ad. I could tell they were a washer and dryer, or at least hoped. Couldn't tell the brand name. I messaged the seller saying I was interested in them and asking her to take pictures of them from the front and stuff on top removed. Second and third pictures are what she sent.

I made an offer and she accepted. They were located almost 160 miles away from where I live. Buddy of mine and I drove on Saturday to the location. Out in the middle of nowhere, off this dirt road. The driveway was barely noticeable and it went through the woods. Wasn't sure if we were going to make it out of there alive (too many horror movies. Lol). These two machines were in this metal pole barn with a bunch of other junk.

The seller was a woman in her late 50s (my assumption) and the place and stuff belonged to her parents. She is tasked with cleanup.

Pictures 4 through 6 are of the washer, once I got them home.

Pictures 7 and 8 are of the dryer.

Picture 9 is of them after I gave them a bath. The dryer is gas. The washer has some rust holes on the front kick plate and on the base, inside.

They are Bradford, which was an appliance brand for the department store of W.T. Grant. Grant went out of business in 1976. My guess is these two are probably towards the last couple of years, they were in business.

 

[repairguy]

Congrats again! That set is a Franklin design. I believe the washer to be the 18 pound version. There is a picture of the day with a Gibson set which would be the same design. There was also a Kelvinator model and others. Although common at the time these are pretty rare today. Nice save!

 

[gansky1]

This is a nice save - and the set, wow.  Hopefully they'll not need much work to get them running again.  I had a Kelvinator branded washer of this same (Franklin) design years ago.  There were so many pin-holes in the outer tub it leaked like a shot-up Yosemitie Sam when it was full of water.  It was a huge basket, held a lot of clothes.

 

The filter/dispenser was a cool design with the little ball that raised up during the wash spin allowing the softener to dribble out when it stopped.

 

[washerlover]

Congrats on a very nice find! I believe these washers had an indexing tub?

 

[DADoES]

 
What are the little unlabeled buttons?  Console lights?

 

[pulltostart]

What a fantastic clean-up!  Congratulations on your new toys.

 

lawrence

 

[qsd-dan]

Those sure cleaned up nicely, great job on that!

Are these TOL, they look on the higher end side?

 

[appnut]

Wow Justin. You are a member if a very small elite club. Congratulations!!

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Amazing Find!

I've never seen a Bradford before.
WK78

 

[petek]

"Bradford" branded appliances were sold in Canada in that time period at Zellers Dept Stores which was owned by Grants. I had a Bradford 9" b/w tv. I can't recall if the washers they sold were so named or not.

 

[scrubflex]

What a EXCELLENT find!!! CONGRATULATIONS on the beautiful clean up job. The '72 models have the the SUPER FAST Tub Brakes with NO INDEXING washtubs.

 

[goatfarmer]

Nice save!

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

My dad worked for Grant's but I was too young for any appliance memories especially Bradfords such as those two or even anything as fancy that was Bradford or from there...

Only remember either mom or most likely dad lifting me up to a gold washer with a window in the lid which if it was at Grant's then probably not a Frigidaire...

And our avocado Bradford dryer having a white door handle, of which in a small lobby was a similar one also with a white door handle in harvest gold...

The avocado washer and dryer were side by side in a laundry room at the house we lived in then just to be adjacent from one another at where we'd moved to and the harvest gold fridge and stove being next to each other there there, while they were formerly in different parts of the kitchen as was the very low-line white portable dishwasher in each house, which was the first of those appliances to go after seeing it break...

-- Dave

 

[cfz2882]

Classic WCI...

...and a WCI classic. Very cool find! I had to get on Youtube and watch that old ~1982 Kelvinator video

 

[Unimatic1140]

This is a very cool and extremely rare find Justin!!! Hopefully it wont be much of a challenge to get the washer running again.

 

[sambootoo]

Nice find! Hope you get them up and running easily. Be sure and post videos when you do. Can't wait!

 

[bajaespuma]

I can't wait to see more

When I was about 12, our local Grants store in Old Saybrook CT was relocated to a larger space in the plaza. At the same time that Grants started carrying what they used to call "Major Appliances". How happy was I.

All of a sudden my secret interest was easier to access. I think this must have been in 1969 because I remember that Consumer Reports 1969 review of Automatic Washers and I remembered that they rated the Franklin machine on the high side declaring that it had the largest capacity of all the tested machines. This post is a treat.

 

[combo52]

WCI built Bradford washer and dryer

Wow, Justin those really cleaned up. Well, they’re quite handsome. I’m sure they’re top-of-the-line.

We had very little experience with those washers. It’ll be interesting to see if it savable.

We worked on quite a few of the dryers over the years. They were sold several different brand names, Gibson, Kelvinator, etc.

I remember working on a Gibson dryer that age and the complaint from the customer was it wouldn’t heat, I started the dryer and held the button for the door switch to see what was going on and much to my surprise as soon as the igniter up and the gas burner fired the entire drum filled with flames Scared the hell out of me, came to find out that the machine was shaking so badly that the orifice from the gas burner had unscrewed itself and fallen out so it was firing at a rate of over 150,000 BTUs and fortunately, the high limit thermostat cut the flame off almost instantly with that much heat so the customer thought it wasn’t heating at all lol

John

 

[maytag85]

“The machine was shaking so badly that the orifice from the gas burner had unscrewed itself and fallen out so it was firing at the rate of over 150,000 BTUs”

Holy hell! How in the world can an orifice unscrew itself despite being held in fairly firmly, I’m sure the use thread-locker of some kind. Geez, that’s probably one of the most scary failures that can happen on any dryer. Thankfully the burner cut out immediately with that much heat, definitely cooked the high limit thermostat that’s for sure. John, is the only time you had that happen, or have you seen it multiple times over the years?

 

[askolover]

We had a Grant's store in Lawrenceburg, TN when I was little, my neighbor worked there. But I don't remember major appliances being there nor have I ever heard of Bradford other than the Bradford White water heaters. That Grant's store became a Kmart later.

 

[launderess]

From the archives:

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?32786

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?31429

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?87895

 

[swestoyz]

This is such a fun save, Justin. I hope that the washer has some life left in it, even if it's for fun in the driveway. I'm dying to know if there is a light in the panel.

Does anyone know if both of these were made in Webster City, Iowa, at the now defunct WCI/Electrolux plant?

Ben

 

[golittlesport]

Congrats Justin! As other have said -- those sure cleaned up nicely!

 

[combo52]

Reply to reply number 18

Hi Sean, the other time I ever heard of this type of thing happening was many years ago. I was working on a late 60s whirlpool gas dryer right here in Beltsville and the customer told me a story that they had bought the gas dryer. It was a floor model from Washington gas, and when the men came out and installed it and first fired it up, flames came out of the back of the machine and went all the way up the wall behind the machine, they shut it down immediately and discovered when it was sitting on the showroom floor apparently somebody had stolen the orifice out of the main burner jet and left it out.

Yes, normally I would expect that the orifice is screwed in sufficiently so that it won’t fall out but the Gibson dryer I was working on was not much of a dryer.

We had another experience with a Gibson electric dryer like this customer bought it because it was low priced and they thought they were getting a bargain. They had us go and hook it up level it up etc. and when I push the start button, the machine shimmy and shook so badly with nothing even in it that it walked away from the wall over 2 feet scared the heck out of me.

These were not very durable dryers the front bearing on the drum was dragging in such a way that it caused a horrible vibration however when you put a load of wet clothing in it actually worked she didn’t keep dryer. We replaced the washer in the dryer with a pair of whirlpool 9800s this was around 1980.

I really don’t have any experience with this WCI built washer from this. I’ve only seen about three of them in my life and I think they were all on the junk pile or ones that we were hauling out of a customers house when we were selling them a new machine Hopefully Justin can get it to work. It would be cool to see one run.

John

 

[maytag85]

The lesson of the day is to always double check everything when you by a floor model of anything, parts could have been taken off of it which will cause it to not function, or pose a dangerous situation as John mentioned where the orifice had been removed on a Whirlpool dryer from the late 60’s. Not trying to go off topic, just replying to John.

A Bradford set from the 70’s is something you don’t see everyday. Congratulations on your find, Justin.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Saw and got up close to a Norge dryer and was surprised at how similar it was to our Bradford dryer, the third Grant's appliance to leave the house after the washer and dishwasher did...

 

A few things looked a bit of shared parts with that Norge by Fedder's, or at least something here and there to me resembled, and maybe a washer compared to ours we had would have had some same stuff, if I'd gotten to see...

 

Have that same Consumers Reports magazine with that Automatic Washers review, Bajespuma is showing those pictures from that they're in...

 

 

 

-- Dave

 

[dominic20]

question

can i see some videos of it washing a large load