Early Frigidaire Coin-Operated Washer

[Unimatic1140]

Boy how I loved these machines when I was a kid. It was a wonderful treat to go to a laundromat which had these machines when we were on vacation.

The Tech-Talk service manuals for these machines are very rare, but over the years I managed to find most of them. I'm going to start archiving them to the Ephemera Library now. Today I posted this big 74 page service manual to the first 3 Frigidaire coin-op washers from 1959 and 1960. The great thing about the commercial washer manuals is they are both a service and parts manual in one. It lists all the part numbers, many which were used in home models as well, which makes it easy to do ebay searches for these parts.

I did have one of these machines for a while, it was great fun to have it in my collection with its 18 minute cycle!

 

[akronman]

Hiya Robert

Cool post on Frigidaires!
Robert--I got a new PC and lost the PRODUCTSTAT link I used to check frequently. Is that web site gone?

Thanks for your work on AW.org, best wishes for a HAPPY NEW YEAR to you and Fred

Mark

 

[goatfarmer]

I remember going with my dad, to a laundromat in Niles, Michigan, to work on those. They were the same Turquoise color.

They also had Whirlpool BD coin ops. This had to be 1972 or so.

 

[washdaddy]

PRODUCTSTAT- FYI

Mark-

Just an FYI. I did see a post the other day where it mentioned that the site has been taken down but I don't recall the exact thread.

The amount of work involved verses the interest was not working out. The numbers that Robert was hoping for weren't happening so for now he decided to pull it down cause it demanded too much of his time on top of everything he was doing on AW. He did mention that there is always a possibility that it could come back in the future depending on how things work out down the pike.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Yeah...i remember it!!!! I remember the very post where you mentioned you used to go in laundromats having those in the holidays right?

It had an internal metal  disc programmer you could adjust right? I remember something  about adjusting it for a timed fill also..IIRC.
Beautiful! 

 

[lebron]

Hey Robert, that Frigidaire sure looks like fun! What ever happened to this machine?

 

[Unimatic1140]

Yes Mark, there is a thread in the Super Forum about Productstat and Freddy, that is correct what you are remembering.

Hey Jed, that coin-op washer I had for a bit was cosmetically in terrible shape, so I saved the best parts from it, including the timer and window lid and transmission. I can put that coin-op window lid on my '58 Turquoise Unimatic with it's original lid open, which is fun to do every once in a while.

If you notice in the service manual there are three machines shown, a 1959 Window Lid Model, 1959 no-window model and a 1960 Window lid model.

I remember going into a laundromat in the early 1970's where they had two long rows of washers. One row was 1960's Speed Queens washers and the other row had these 1959 no-window lid models. What was odd about the 1959 no-window lid machines was the agitator was the grey plastic molded ring agitator that they used in the 1958 Pulsmatic washer models. Since the Pulsamatic was discontinued in '59, maybe they were using up old stock? But they were clearly Unimatic washers according to this manual. Never seen anything ever like it again where they used a Pulsamatic agitator in a Unimatic washer.

 

[frigilux]

My sister and brother-in-law lived in an apartment building with a Frigidaire coin-op. This would have been 1967-69. I stayed with them for a couple of weeks during summers and had a lot of fun watching it work. I was amazed at how fast it spun, the brevity of the first spin, and the lack of a pause between agitation and spin. I was used to a 1960 Kenmore with its 2-minute drain and 4-minute first spin. The Frigidaire was a speed demon by comparison---that 18-minute cycle seemed to go by in a flash. The cost was 20 cents per load, about a penny a minute for great entertainment.

It had the "space capsule" Jet Action agitator without a cap. I didn't realize the coin-ops didn't come with one; figured it had gotten lost. But that made for a lot of splashy action against the window in the lid.

Ah, memories of childhood.[this post was last edited: 1/1/2015-11:17]