Dude, where's my combo?

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turquoisedude

turquoisedude

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What's this?? The GE washer dryer combo unit from my beloved kitchen centre in Ogden is missing!

How can this be? What happened?? Did Hubby finally build and deploy the evil 'cubinator' that he has been threatening to use to thin out my collection??

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-15-54-42.jpg
 
Oh wait, there it is!

Silly me, I forgot that I had pulled the combo out to finally try and get it working properly...

For those who don't recall the saga, when I got the machine in 2008 I found that there was serious damage to the wiring cause by a band of vicious Texan rodents... I somehow managed to get the machine running (and this with just a partial wiring diagram) but it wasn't working completely. I could make the machine wash and rinse, but it never got to spin or dry. Well, thanks to Automatic Ephemera, I got the Service Manual for this machine and after studying it for several months, I figured I knew what to do to make the GE Combo do everything it was supposed to. Well, that's what I believed anyway...

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-01-29.jpg
 
First thing I did was to check my wiring. I had never hooked the machine up to 240 Volt power because I feared that I had not wired the 'dry' components correctly. Turns out I did - that was a pleasant surprise!

What I never figured out was why the timer never got power... I improvised a power supply by drawing from the water level control and from the main neutral lead. Well I found ONE bad connection that accounted for why the timer did not seem to be powered...

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-05-10.jpg
 
I was feeling confident, so I gave the machine a test run (with water and all).

No sparks, flames, or exploding transformers BUT the darned machine would not fill for the rinses after the main wash water had drained out. What the ??????

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-07-19.jpg
 
Well, after a lot of deliberation, studying the manual, and having Phil's (PhilR) insights after he studied the manual, it seemed to point to timer issue. I was scared to try it, but I opened the timer and did some continuity testing....

As it turned out, there was a contact to a switch that would alternately feed power to the timer from two different sources - the switch blade would contact one terminal in a 'lower' position and a different one in the 'upper' postion. Well, that 'upper' position was where power should have been flowing from in the rinse-drain phase of the cycle and contact was not being made.

Believe it or not, this was fixed by simply adjusting the upper contact! It was the one on the upper left in this picture. Son of a ......

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-13-12.jpg
 
But wait there's more...

I also had trepidations about ever using this machine as a dryer becuase the lead from the thermostat control to the probe inside the wash tub had been chewed away.

A while back John (combo52) sent me a thermostat from a 1959 GE combo that he parted out. Now I just had to figure out how to replace the exising one with this...

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-15-46.jpg
 
Here was what was confusing me...

The 1956 thermostat had a set of two switches behind it. The 1959 version had only one.

Thanks to the wiring diagram and comprehensive cycle descriptions in the manual, I found out that the second switch was used to when the 'delicate' temperature for drying was selected. I figured that in a worst-case scenario, I'd no longer have delicate drying capability in the combo. I didn't see this as a show-stopper, though, as I was never really intending to use the combo unit as a regular use dryer due to the high water usage. I threw caution to the wind and switched the switches from the 1956 to the 1959 thermostat!

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-20-49.jpg
 
Inside the tub, the 'new' thermostat probes fit, but were different from the original 1956 probe... I remained optimistic...

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-22-8.jpg
 
Since I had never used the machine as a dryer before, I thought now might be the time to add some extra insulation.

I found this package of acoustic insulation at a yard sale last summer. It was cut into just the right width for the combo. What luck!

turquoisedude++3-17-2013-16-24-5.jpg
 
The moment of truth was today... Would the timer run? Would I plunge Quebec and Vermont in darkness this time around??

Nah! The timer was getting power the way it was supposed to and the machine advanced from wash to rinse with no issues! Yippeee!!

 
Better still...

It kicked into the Dry phase of the cycle! For the FIRST time! I was over the moon...

 
And now the BUT....

Yeah, it wouldn't be one of my restorations if there wasn't still something not quite right now would it??

So, I did still observe two issues. The machine never kicked into spin (all 200 RPM of it...) and I am not sure that the dry function is working completely reliably and automatically.

I'll probably not get to do much more exploring until the end of the week, but I did manage to test the spin solenoid and it seems to be working...

Stay tuned and if there's a major power outage next weekend, you can't prove it was my combo... LOL [this post was last edited: 3/17/2013-16:55]
 
I saw the steam with my own eyes

Congratulations and kudos on your patience. I think I saw steam billowing at the end of your clip, now thats what I thought a steam cycle was all along. Red hot and billowing clouds of steam. Will a combo make fluffy filtrator-like towels? arthur
 
Will a combo make fluffy filtrator-like towels?

Arthur, I haven't successfully dried a full load of anything in this combo yet, but I have heard that a condenser-dry combo like this one will turn out fluffy towels, especially when the hot water rinse option is selected. I think that will be my 'maiden wash' load test for this machine!!

Jon - it only took me four years to get this far, but I am still determined!! Oh and a word of caution - the dials for the cycle control and dry selector are REALLY fragile! Use extreme caution with yours and if you manage to mess them up (I did - that could be a whole other thread!) I came up with a way to repair them.

Phil - just hope the snow predicted for this week will be cleared in time...
 
GE Combo Water Cooled Condenser Drying

Having used these for years they do a decent job of drying, which is quite a feat when you consider that the clothing goes into the dry cycle almost dripping wet having been spun at only 200 RPMs. While condenser dryers often do make for fluffier towels I did not notice this as much on these GE Combos, this may have something to do with the rinsing, poor final water extraction and the fact this combo is a VERY HOT dryer. The thermostats trip-cutout temperature varies by the users dryness control setting from 180-280 degrees F. The way these machines were made they provided either a warm or hot final rinse and on the two GE Combos that I have used for years I have overridden the warm or hot rinses and this certainly does not make any difference in the fluffiness of clothing coming out at the end of drying and if anything because it makes the dry cycle a little longer it may leave them fluffier.
 
Great work!

it can be nervous working with 220 volt. Way to roll up your sleeves and jump into it. With a little help from the wonderful people on AW. I have noticed that rodents can get a taste for copper and chew wire.
 
YAY! It's spinning!

So, I got as far as finding out the spin solenoid was good early this week. I was pretty sure there was a contact issue that preventing the timer from sending power to the spin solenoid.

With Phil's help, we did a complete recalibration and adjustment of all the timer contacts - it's kind of scary, but it was a successful operation! I swear that Phil will put other timer repair places out of business one day...

Of course we had to do a cycle test to be sure that everything was still working...

WARNING: The video here contains language that may be deemed offensive - it was 1:00 AM this morning and I was feeling a little punchy (I don't usually film 'first-time' tests...) Please forgive my colourful language!

 
Wait...

THAT'S colorful language? Oh, you polite Canadaian boy, you. Congrats on the success! Don't hate on the 200 rpm spin, though. You'll hurt her feelings.
 
Dry Cycle issues still,...

And although the machine did kick into the dry cycle with both calrods and the condenser valve working fine, I got a little spooked by the temperature inside the tub. It got REALLY hot and I was a little concerned that the 1959 thermostat is not kicking in. I was a little surprised the safety thermostat didn't kick in either... But what was very odd and of great concern was the fact that the combo ran when I opened the door during the dry cycle... I had expected the motor to shut off, but it didn't...
So, I am a little leary of using this with clothes, lest I burn the house down..
Any suggestions as to what my be wrong here??
 

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