CODE BLUE, I NEED BEARINGS STAT!!!

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the drain hose.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the harness to the motor from the control board.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the front of the outer drum->the front of the outer drum is held on by a series of small clips. Just remove the clips, do not remove the boot!!

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Here is what the clips look like.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

The front is also held to the frame of the machine by 4 bolts->remove those, carefully remove the outer tub front and boot.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the cylinder!

To remove the cylinder, locate the three big baffles, each baffle if held to the cylinder by 2 torx screws. Remove the screws, and baffles.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Removing the baffles exposes three bolts that hold the cylinder to the spider assembly.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the cylinder, remove the springs that hold the outer tub in place. CAREFULLY remove the outer tub-> lift up and forward. Remember that you have a motor that may or may not be open-framed, attached to the outer tub.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the belt. It has multiple grooves, carefully slide the belt off the shaft of the motor. The motor is mounted by one bolt and a pivot arm. Remove the bolt, use a hammer to tap the top of the pivot arm->motor will slide out, be ready to catch it.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

One bolt holds the pulley into place->usually this bolt is on VERY tight.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Remove the spider assembly->Screw the bolt back on to the shaft, use a hammer to release the spider assembly from the bearings. Hit ONLY the bolt, otherwise if you divert from the bolt, you WILL damage the shaft.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Before hitting the shaft, place the outer tub on a blanket to protect the edges of the tub from being damaged from the force applied by the hammer. Spider-> After spider is removed, set it aside, along with the three plastic spacers.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Top view of the spider and one of the spacers.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Removing the bearings

The bearing in the rear is the smallest of the 2 bearings. If you don't have a hydraulic press, the easiest way to remove the bearings is to use a pipe and a short sledge hammer. Get a pipe in which the outer diameter meets up with the outer diameter of the inner race of the bearing. Insert the pipe through the front of the outer tub, through the coller, which between the bearings. In my case the rear bearing was the easiest to remove->just 5 whacks.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

The front bearing requires a bigger diameter pipe. In my case this bearing was the hardest to remove. It took ~30 minutes of solid pound to get it out. Here is the pipe afterward

 

[supremewhirlpol]

rear bearing and collar

 

[supremewhirlpol]

As you can see it is impossible to confuse which bearing goes where, or how far they have to go in. Also there is a weep hole for water run off

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Where rear bearing goes.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Both bearings-> they do differ in size.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

Cleaning

Clean The area where the bearings go, as well as the area where the seal will be. In my case The original owners of this machine used way too much soap->so much that it formed a tough layer on the spider, outer side of the cylinder, and inner side of the outer tub. This had to be removed with a chisel. Cleaning took 2-3 hours.