Couple of Maytag quetions...

[mattl]

I've been playing with my "found" A209, and since it's my first 'Tag experience I had a few questions. I'm playing wiht it in my garage at the moment, odds are it will join my laundry room shortly.

Anyway... I was wondering about the fabric softener dispenser. Every time I've washed something it seems to fill up fairly quickly with water that sloshed into it. This kind of defeats the purpose since in a mater of minutes it's overflowing. Normal?

Second is there an easy way to bypass the lid switch? I have not pulled the front panel off yet, need to do that soon, but the switch is a pain. I use a shim at the moment, but that is not very practical.

All I've washed in it so far are old rugs, and I have to say they have come out very clean, better than I had hoped. The wash action with the longer sweep is quite different than the Whirlpool based units I'm used to. I'll have to clean out all the old latex backing for the rugs I washed and perhaps try a load of towels.

 

[qsd-dan]

Every time I've washed something it seems to fill up fairly quickly with water that sloshed into it.

A couple of possibilities:

#1 Water level switch adjusted too high.
#2 Basket underloaded for the amount of water being used can cause water to splash into the dispenser.
#3 An awkward load, like rugs, will cause LOTS of splashyness.

Second is there an easy way to bypass the lid switch?

Yes, but bypassing the lid switch bypasses the out-of-balance option. They're essentially tied together (out of balance lever trips the lid switch).

 

[lordkenmore]

Correct me if I'm wrong...

but it seems to me that the out of balance is not an optional nicety on Maytags. If I recall right, I've heard that seriously out of balance load could--potentially--harm the machine if it's not rebalanced. Thus, any defeat mechanism should probably only be used when one is keeping an eye on the machine.

This is probably good advice, in general--when running any appliance, I try to at least keep an "ear" on the machine just in case something goes wrong.

 

[laundromat]

To over ride the lid switch---

You remove the back of the control panel and (of course,you'll want to unplug the unit)then remove the two wires that are on either side of the lid switch. Take some black electrical tape and tape the two ends together as tight as you can and place the wires just in back of the timer.This makes the washer do all it's supposed to do except stop for an off ballance load.I've never had an issue with any off ballance loads and all my Maytag top loaders have the lid switch over ridden.The only time my fabric softner dispensers get any residual water in them is when the suds are too high.They creap up through the center where there's turbulance and the lint filter is filtering all the excess lint out of the wash water.To remidy that,I use the HE detergents.

 

[combo52]

BY PASSING LID SWITCHES

See thread # 28621 this was discussed in detail there.

 

[mattl]

Thanks!

I just washed a couple of sets of smallish rugs that are used in the garage, so very dirty. They did not throw the machine off balance even when they were bunched up, just a little wobble. Don't know what it would take to make it go off balance if those didn't do it.

I used the high water level so perhaps with the rugs it splashed around more. Cleaned out all the latex backing, a rug basically disintegrated, now I might toss in a load of work towels and see what it does.