Finally its happened to me right in front of my eyes but words cant describe it

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Keyplate

Mike
Thankyou so much for sending this to me, i am gobsmacked to be able to try the machine out, hopefully tomorrow if i get time i will be round the garage Keyplate in hand all excited to see if the machine works,leaks,goes bang..etc etc.

So i will back

Thanks again
Gary
 
Good luck Gary!

Being interested in aviation and transport generally, it feels amost like a first trial run/first take off/first sea trials.

everyone is eager, looking forward to it but with a degree of trepadation. What will happen?

Have fun.

If you are after an istruction manual of sorts - its for an A3008, but will offer operational guidance if needed - click on the attached link and type in 'A3008'.

Let us know how it all goes.
ta ta for now
paul

 
Keymatic IT WORKS!!!

Well lads what can I say...............fookin ell thats what.

Put a hose pipe on her, plugged in got the hang of the keyplate (thanks again Mike)........switched on and hey presto! click click whirr whirrr........pump pump..........more clicks and whirrs..........small puddle appearing (ignored it)...........eventually filled up and up and up and up.......checked pressure switch and pipe (all ok)........then I wacked the water inlet valve the water stopped filling .........also noticed small leak was turning in to a bloody big puddle, which i was stood in!

1st problem
Pump leaking- swapped for later hoover one, the cause was the "o ring" seal on pump shagged, have done that now

2nd problem
BIG LEAK, door boot tiny hole, took it out used liquid rubber tyre seal (courtesey of ATS tyres), repaired :-)....put back door boot turned 180 degrees though to be safe, sorted no door boot leaks

3rd problem
Cold water inlet valve sticking brought it home took it apart and cleaned up tested and it works so i shall put back on the lovely machine next week

New parts required
Drive belt, the old one has a permanant kink in it from where it has stood so long

The Machine
BLOODY MARVELOUS!........fantastic sounds from the programmer and the motor.........i love it sooooooo mechanical, uses water though, i have seen this feature on a bendix autowasher 500, filling with water whilst pumping out (clears the sump of soapy water.

Also if you open the soap draw when it is filling it shuts off, there is a switch on the draw (unusual idea)
The soap draw works really well, there is a massive gush of water at the front so no chance of soap powders being left in there :-)

I have done two programmes Special Treatments and a pre-wash, that went through, heated the water (bout 30 degrees) pumped out and again flushed out the sump?? hmm maybe the faulty inlet valve at work there.

What a brilliant machine........i had mild palputations this morning..........i videod it in three section and have deleted one of them DOH! and i took fots of the pump swap and then deleted them instead of saving them........see the affect this machine is having on me..........brain ache

I am totally convinced of this machines capabilties.......well built, fantastic design i love it

here is a link to the remaining two vids oh and the one fot i didnt delete after i had finished all my testing and fiddling about

So again thanks a million

I will do more vids as i get it more sorted, speaking of which thi was the first time i had used the video thingy and i didnt have the brightness settings set properly, but i will get the hang of that aswell



4-3-2009-14-42-55--electron1100.jpg
 
Fanatstic that, barring a few niggles, it is providing you with fun.

the Keymatics are wonderful machines, for all the clicks, fits and starts they do as they search for the programme. a sudden intake of water, followed by a burst of pump, followed by a brief tumble, followed by more clicks, more pumping (the indicator light moves along the different colours) and then, all of a sudden, it finds what its is supposed to be doing and the programme finally begins.

You mention the water cut off. although i never rememeberd it having it, mathew mentioned that the 3236H had the water cut off function when you opened the drawer as well. probably a good thing with me around as a youngster.

I think that the powder drawer was a bit of a matchbox achillies heel. It was so shallow and sucked in water so quickly, quite a lot of the water had a tendency to elesewhere, which lead to rust issues with them.
That is what the two lips on the powder chutes are for, to defelect the water back into the machine as it surged in.
Compare it to the follow on series - the A3006 and A3008 - and i think they had changed the design to be deeper - a lesson learned there by Hoover.

The fact that your machine is in such good trim is remarkable, bearing in mind they did rust quite badly.

Even my parents, I noticed when looking at a picture of it, was beginning to go in the powder drawer area and i distinctly remember it leaking from that area too. My mum always used to wrap a blue jaycloth around the front left wheel to soak up escaping drips.

Keep the vids and pics coming Gary. Totally loving this thread.

regards
paul
 
well done

Gary on a great days work, several annoying problems, but your're well on the way. Enjoyed the vids too, I could listen to that timer advance for hours. Now what will come in this weekend lol.

Mathew
 
Kwik Valve pic

Here you are Mike fot of the inlet valves, there is a fot of the tray way up on this thread but i will remove the tray and do some more indepth fots for you

There is a restrictor fitted to the inlet anyway,I have removed the inlet filter to clean it out so maybe Pauls comments are correct, becuase there is a fantastic flow of water in the tray, thankfully it hasnt leaked.

Oh yes that programmer sounds lovely far more heavy duty sounding than the ones in the Logic machines

4-4-2009-01-13-48--electron1100.jpg
 
Trays

Hi Chris, what where the last keymatics in Australia?? was it the wide bodied??

Hi Gary, if you have a pic of the tray and gubbins under the worktop that would be fab, the next series had a different tray see below, so the A3234 was unique, did all the matchboxes have this style of tray??

I want to compare workings!!! A3008 below

4-4-2009-03-55-51--chestermikeuk.jpg
 
Fab Gary!! Loved the vids.

You are doing really well with getting it sorted. It's great there is nothing major wrong with it. Thankfully the rear seal wasn't leaking.

Looking forward to watching it with a load in.

Mark
x
 
Hello. What a find !
It looks like its been looked after quite well.
Love the lights on the control panel..
Please post videos of her in action .
Regards. Lou.
 
Mike..

From what I understand, the last of the Keymatics in Oz were the 'original' shape.

When Hoover UK changed to the classic front load design, Hoover Australia started to import the more basic model as their front load option though Brisnat may be able to clarify that.

When we stopped importing them from the UK in the mid-late 1970's, Hoover started local manufacture. Australian made machines lost the detergent drawer which is one way to spot an Australian made early machine from an imported one. We had no detergent drawer until about 1989-1990.

All was forgiven when the last of the model 520 'Zodiacs' (as the later series became known) and Hoover reintroduced the detergent drawer on the 530 'Electra' series until the withdrawal of local manufacture of front load machines in about 1998-1999.

Until this point, ALL non-Keymatic front load machines in Oz were effectively 'matchbox' machines. The lid off pic above of the keymatic is EXACTLY what my 1994 Electra looked like inside with 2 minor differences. The timer (of course) and the drum was stainless steel. Even the detergent drawer is the same and I will take a punt that looking at the pic, the right hand side is hot water intake and the left is cold. On our machines there was a small 'J' shaped stainless 'tag' that you needed to depress under the detergent drawer to be able to remove it. Is this the case on the UK machines?

Here is a pic of a 1994/1995 Hoover Electra 550 (no heater) borrowed from a previous post. The door when shut does sit proud of the machine just as it should...

4-4-2009-05-05-53--ronhic.jpg
 
Just further to our recent phone converstaion Mike....

the 3236h had the same powder drawer set up as the 3243H, apart from the fact that it didn't have the fabric conditioner facility.

only people who paid keymatic prices, got this option. My mum made do with keeping an eye on where it was at in the cycle and added the fabric conditioner manually.

my grandma had the electra A3E02 - essentially an updated, but visually quite recognisable 3236H. she was a religious user of fabric conditoner - lucky for her, the A3e02 had the receptacle - i remember, under her watchful gaze, gently pouring turquoise liquid in the drawer.

Owners of the 3235 cold fill only machine popped the powder in the drum, as they didnt have the luxury of a powder drawer. picture of the final version 3235 shown below, coutesy of Mathew's collection.

Chris.
really intereseted to know more about Hoover's Australian Matchboxes. Did they look the same as the UK machines or were there subtle design differences. If any australian members have a piccy or two of these great machines, I for one would be really eager to see them.

gary.
ITS THE WEEKEND! what you been upto with it?
or are you having a quiet, gentle calming weekend away from your new acquisition?

Great stuff - as I type this message I can glance out of the window and se the house where a 3243H once resided and i can go downstairs to the kitchen where, until 1986, there stood a 3236H.

Matchboxes Woz ere!
Paul

4-4-2009-05-33-4--matchboxpaul.jpg
 
Here are...

...a couple in this thread..

The Zodiac 520 is the last of the non-drawer Australian Hoovers and looks very similar to the 3235 as above. There is also a good summary of the machines in this link, though the spin speed may be incorrect for some as I thought that my aunts Zodiac 475 spun at 750rpm from what I remember reading in the manual.

The Zodiacs all had 5 rinses as did the first 2 Electra models (530 and 540). When the Electra 550 came out as the 'Electra economiser' they had reduced the rinses to 3 with a distributed intermittant 800rpm (max rpm) spin between them. This was a 'proper' distributed spin and were the first of the local machines to have one. Additionally, they also had a water level sensor so as the load absorbed it would take more water in....

The 550 is a great machine and almost unbreakable when not abused. Mine is still going strong at a mates and is now over 15yrs old. In that time it has had a drive belt, door boot and a split dispenser inlet hose replaced....

Loading…

www.automaticwasher.org
 
Belated congratulations!

WOW, what a find, I'm torn between being excited and delighted for you and insanely jealous, hehehe! It's an absolute beauty, the early facias with the dark strip on the bottom seem so much more handsome to me!

So glad it's only had minor niggles, not bad for a 37 year old machine! And that programmer sounds like sweet music to me! Anyone remember if the dial machines were that noisy?

Hmmm, wonder if any Zodiac parts are compatible?

Right lads! Now to find the two lowlier models! :-)

Simon
 
I wouldn't be surprised if many Zodiac parts were usable especially chassis/suspension bits and doors...

..and I often wonder if the reason Hoover Australia stopped making front load machines just as they were becoming more and more popular was because some of the parts may have been made in the UK and possibly stockpiled here. Given that the basic chassis of the machine dated to the early 1970's and Hoover UK updated to a different machine, it is possible.

They switched to importing a rebadged Beko and a Hoover 1200rpm spin machine....the Beko's are not common and not a patch on the Electra which was about the same money and the real Hoover was expensive and competed with Bosch on price....
 
Cheers Chris, for the link to the zodiac pictures.

Were the australian machines always styled that way, facia wise? or did they originally have more of the UK look about them e.g the single 'A' or 'B' button and coloured rim around the programmer dial.

General question for all on the Australian theme - from where did the Hoover Apollo dryer originate? was that a pure australian machine, or was that an imported design too?

cheers for the info.
regards
paul
 

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