Colston Ariston Automatic Wash and Tumble Dry 850 XD

[sesteve]

Hi folks

I recently acquired one of these machines - an old favourite of mine. It's in great cosmetic condition with just a bit of rust around the dispenser but the chrome, paintwork and controls are in good nick. However, it's not working properly - I'll come on to that in a minute. First here are a few pics

 

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Full frontal

 

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Controls close up

 

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Internals

 

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Rear view

 

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Must be a nightmare to trace out wiring faults! They are virtually the same colours!

 

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And now to the problem - the big induction motor

 

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When I tried it out on a test spin there was a popping noise, the smell of ozone and the drum wouldn't spin. Further investigation revealed a wire to the motor was broken

 

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However, all of the wires coming out of the motor have perished and need replacing

 

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The big question is how. This is as far as I have been able to go with the motor strip down. Not sure how the core comes out. I did speak to a motor rewind place but they wanted silly money. I think they were a bit dodgy though.

Have any other AW ers had a similar issue? Not sure what to do as would love to get this up and running again.

 

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Finally, not sure if there is damage on the rotor as it is marked with lines on one side but not the other

 

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Final pic from me. Any help would be greatly appreciated to get this old classic back up and running

S

 

[robliverpool]

I had that exact same machine briefly for a few months. Weighed an absolute ton but was fun to use. Only downside was having to pull it out from under the worktop when the dryer was in use.

I'm sure someone will help you sort this out.
Great machine though...

 

[keymatic3203]

Hi Steve

Nice machine, and great cosmetic condition. I have had to replace these wires before on a couple of older motors like this.

You are practically there, firstly it looks as though a few of the conections are around the top of the coils as we see in the photo of the coils, with nothing to loose but the chance of success, i would have an educated guess and follow the visible wires and cut the string holding the wrapped up conection and cut it open with side cutters. Now when ive done this on the motors ive worked on, the supply wire and coil wire have simply been twisted and soldered, so i've done the same and then slide heat shrink sleaving over the joint and put the wiring back with cable ties and a blob of epoxy glue. I would be suprised if you need toget the coils out, as it looks as though all the connections are around the top.

If you do get have to get the coils out, then check around the body of the motor for welds or as I have found a rivot holding the coils in place, you'd then have to drift or grind the weld/rivot out, then using a club hammer and slim bolster chisel drift it apart. I had to do this with an old english electric wringer washer motor, to reassemble, i put the outer metal body of the motor in the oven to warm up and expand, then the coils went back in a little easier. But as I say I doubt you'd have to go that far.

Well all the best with the repair, it's lovely to watch that variable pulley as the spin kicks in, something different from our british brush motor machines.

I know the picture doesn't help, just shows one I've done, it's from an acme sun breeze dryer.

Mathew

 

[hotpoint9534]

Great machine. My grandparents used to have the washer only version of this machine until about 1992, unfortunately I can't remember the model number. I've only seen examples of the washer-dryer version since though, so I guess it was more common.

Tom

 

[vacbear58]

Colston

Great catch Steve. If you are short of parts drop and email to "MatchboxPaul" - they purchased a similar machine in the last 12 to 18 months which I believe was to be a donor for parts for another example they have

Al

 

[vacbear58]

@Mathew

I could not help but have a chuckle as i saw the precision tools you have lying by that old motor

Al

 

[MrX]

My grandparents had one of these until the early 2000s I vaguely remember it.
It was called a Thor 850XD here though.

They were a bit of a crazy design by any standards!

The dryer is vented, and just blows the steam straight out through those two hoses and a filter straight into the room! So, if it's under a countertop it's an absolute disaster as you couldn't access the fluff filter and you also couldn't connect up any kind of exhaust hose to deal with the steam.

The two chrome bars bars lift up at 90º to bring down casters to move the machine. Quite a clever idea which should have been adopted by more manufacturers !!

It also does no spin distribution at all if I remember correctly.

Basically the pump comes on and it will sit pumping out for ages then just all of a sudden click into full 850RPM spin and shake like crazy.

Also there's a switch in the drawer that pauses the cycle if you open it. This often shook out during the spin resulting in the machine stopping. I'm not sure if that was intentional or just a happy coincidence to avoid your house being shaken to bits

It also has a pre-pump filter which looks a bit like a comb. It's just a whole load of plastic spikes arranged in a circle on the filter cap. It is not self-cleaning and will catch loads of lint which meant that cleaning the filter was a regular chore for no real reason as the pump should have been able to handle small amounts of lint no problem like modern machines.

That machine finally gave up when the outer tub corroded and it was irreparable.

Oh the other thing, for some reason they tended to suffer a lot of pump failures. Again, not sure why this was.



They're made by Riber of Italy

 

[optima]

Colston

Great Machine you have got your hands on there Steve. Fingers crossed that you will get this beauty back in action soon. Keep us all informed on the progress, wish i could be of some help.