first problem

[gr81nknox]

After almost 10 years of service, my beloved Kenmore Elite washer has developed a problem. After going through the wash cycle and stopping before the drain cycle, when it came on all I heard was a "hum". It almost sounded like a stalled motor. After about 10 seconds it stopped although the timer continued to advance. About 30 seconds later the hum started again and then stopped after 10 seconds or so. It's almost like a thermal cutout or something. I stopped the timer and cycled it through to the end of the wash cycle again and everything worked fine(motor ran and it agitated). Then when it came time to do the drain spin, it once again did the hum with no action. I manually advanced the cycle to the spin part and the motor started running and it drained(it was kind of weird as it was draining and it began to spray as it was in the spin portion). I opened the lid to look in and when it stopped, this put it in spin(got the clunk) so I let it finish and go on into rinse and see what happens. Well, after the rinse cycle agitation, I again got the hum when it should be draining. I stopped it and advanced the timer some and eventually got it to start draining and then it finished the cycle. Now the odd thing, I ran a second load of clothes immediately following and everything worked fine(same cycle). Any thoughts?? My instinct says it might be the timer, but from what I have read on these DD machines, the timer just commands the motor on in either the wash or drain/spin direction and everything else is mechanical. The timer seemed to be commanding something on as I was getting the hum which came from the bottom of the machine. I really want to keep this machine running quite a bit longer, but I'm at a loss as to what this is. The motor seems to work, neutral drain, and spin all seem to work, however, it seems to do this noise when starting a drain-spin sequence. I'll be doing a load of laundry this weekend and will see if it acts up again.

 

[cfz2882]

timer possible

the circuit of the motor's start winding is made through the timer so the problem
could be there.If nothing found there could check the motor and wiring.

 

[whirlykenmore78]

Hum

All direct drive Whirlpool machines use a capacitor start reversing motor. Unless multiple timer contactors have gone bad I would suspect the reverse winding has a dead spot in it. The fact that the motor works in reverse intermittently makes me think this is the case.
Nick

 

[arbilab]

I'm thinking timer, at that point turning on one winding but not the other. The motor won't start with one winding but it will draw a lot of current and trip the overtemp.

Correct me if I'm mistaken about how this machine works as I've never seen one, just BD WPs (one direction), GEs and MTs (reversing).

 

[laundromat]

I'm no expert but I would check its lid switch.Sometimes,the older Whirlpool made washers would get their lid switch to brake. Sometimes from the age of the unit along with chemicals used that can make the plastic parts brittle.Others from abuse like slamming of their lid.The humming though would not necessarily mean that this is the problem. I'd check it anyway since it's an older model.Another suggestion is that the humming noise may be a solinoid like the ones used to operate the different dispensers i.e. bleach and fabric softener.

 

[eronie]

The neutral drain / spin / brake clutch is binding up ! Motor is cutting out on thermal safety to protect it from burning out!!