Fridgidaire Washers

[gansky1]

Beautiful rinse-halo there!

The Unimatic is just about the best Frigidaire, nothing quite like them. I like the Rollermatics and use my 1-18 all the time but the Uni is still my fave.

 

[retromania]

I love Frigidaire with an absolute passion and I would have to say the Unimatic is my fave also! A dream machine for me for sure!

 

[yogitunes]

Such fascinating machines......watching them puts you in a trans.....no matter what version there is.....how do we explain this passion to constantly watch...

but can we back up for a second......in reply #17, the timer, is basically a one cycle machine......where do you set this for the first fill, it is a time fill correct?......I see the second fill time on the dial....

and I understand the "push to restart" button.....

and of course the temp selection.....

whats the white button for?

 

[retromania]

Yes. Watching them does put you in a trance!

 

[combo52]

UNIMATIC TIMERS

<span style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Martin they had an extra cam in the timer that had a spring on it that allowed you to set the wash time and after so many minuets the cam would flip and fill would stop and washing would start. The rinse was always a full tub of water. It was a clever feature as most time fill machines you had to start at maximum wash time and reset the wash time after the fill. Even the last Frigid-air solid tub machine did not do this The Agitatub models in the 1970s.

 

[yogitunes]

Some of these machines from this era are just ingenious.....

from designs to mechanisms......pure brilliance!

I think thats where we get fascinated by watching them, and idea at work, and somewhat a flawless design.......give or take

it used to kill me as not only to watch the machine agitate, but how the spinning motor made the agitator oscillate, I just had to know what was going on inside that transmission, or what made that pulsator bob up and down.....

Thanks John

 

[mickeyd]

The white switch and the prayer

Martin

 

Believe or not, the white switch is the lid switch, pretty funny safety feature for a machine that spins at 1140 rpms, in that you have to have the lid open all the way till it rests against the switch to cut the power. A washer Boy's dream. Ah the safety features of the 50's

 

Jim

 

I don't know what the Ingraham Prayer is either, but if Ben and Eddie know what it is, you can be sure it's interesting or funny.

 

The MAGIC TIMER affords another cool sound: you can hear the click/ching of the spring John describes and you can see that the end of the wash cycle "makes up"

for the fill. In other words, when you set the washtime at 10, the fill goes on until minute 6, when the pulsation begins. Then the four minutes of "lost" wash time used for the fill is made up during the segment labeled "Wash Time." The notch before the W is for the 1&1/2 minute overflow.

 

Have to switch servers to get to the library for another pic.

 

[mickeyd]

Here

water shooting out of the salt shaker neck during overflow rinse

 

[mickeyd]

manual home made recirculation nozzle also used for suds-ret

`

 

[Unimatic1140]

Here is one absolutely beautiful Sales Lit piece for the Frigidaire WO-65 Unimatic.  Yogi on page 8 it explains the wonderful new Select-o-Dial...

 

Please be advised this .pdf file download is 16mb...

http://www.automaticwasher.org/BROCHURES/WO-65_Brochure.pdf

 

[yogitunes]

Great Reading ...... Thank You Robert

with the new select-o-dial, it now has 2 rinses, did this do away with the overflo during the rinse?........leaving the only overflo at the end of the wash phase?....

I know when my Speed Queen does a rinse, one minute overflo at the beginning and end, and considering it takes four minutes to fill the tub, if it continued to add water the entire time, it would be the equivilent of 2 tubs of water...

and the added benefit of 2 complete spin-out and refill would really have those clothes suds free.....plus in under 30 minutes....just amazing......why they did away with machines like this.....brain dead!

 

[joelippard]

Rinse

Yes, on the WO-65 you get two full tub rinses without overflow, but on the later WO-65-2 it had the overflow rinse at the end of the wash period and then overflowed through all of the rinse cycle also.

Love all this Frigidaire Reading!

 

[retromania]

That 800 Lady Kenmore in mickeyd's photo has also been other photos on this website. Love that color! Also learned what "thimble top agitator" means and now it is so obvious. Ok washer enthusiasts, what makes the Lady Kenmoore 800 get so popular amoung collectors and admirers like me?!

 

[toploader55]

Ingraham Prayer...

When I got my Unimatic the Timer Motor was shot. So like OK , I'll just run over to the parts store and pick one up. NOT.

Well, a friend found one and the timer motor manufacturer Brand Name at the time was Ingraham. According to the Unimatic Authorities, these Timer Motors were quite Unreliable and do not last that long.

So, Everytime I run a Wash through the Unimatic, I always say a "Ingraham Prayer".

And it is Very True... You never (or I don't) get tired of watching a Unimatic. Most Washers just don't have the Drama a Unimatic Performs Everytime.

 

[combo52]

UNIMATIC RINSING

As with many things the engineers that designed the orignal Unimatics got it right the first time as the double deep rinse rinsed out soil, detergent and bleach much better than the later overflow single rinse system did while using less than two additional gallons of water than the overflow rinse used.

 

All that said there were some problems with rinsing so throughly in the solid tub Unimatics or any washer for that matter. The overflow at the end of the wash period and during the deep rinse removed soap scum and excess suds much better. In a ST washer like the Unimatic when it goes into spin the heavy water goes quickly up and over the edge of the tub, so any thing floating on the surface goes down into the center of the tub and is plastered all over the surface of the clothing where it will remain. This was a problem in hard water areas or where people still used soap that the overflow rinse solved. 

 

When I got my first Unimatic it was the WO-65-2 which had the later overflow rinse I used it that way for a long time. Then I converted it to the two deep rinse by using an earlier timer and timer dial. The difference in rinsing was amazing as I often used this machine to wash white clothes where I add LCB near the end of the wash period. After rinsing with the overflow rinse you could still smell bleach in the clothes, but after going to the double rinse when you removed the clothing you could not even tell the clothing had been bleached. 

 

All that said the overflow rinse is much more fun to watch.

 

[jim]

Ingraham Prayer

Hello toploader55 - thanks for the info re. the Ingraham Prayer. I have seen that manufacturer's trade name before now that you mention it in an old parts book I used to use. I did not know however that they were short lived.

Would it be possible to use another timer other than the original one on these machines if one could not find an original that still worked? Say for example a timer from a more current washer - Kenmore? whatever?

What year did the WO-65-2 come out? Does the WO-65-2 have only one rinse?

Have any of you out there ever gone to the extent of having the whole machine re-porcelinized? Like take it apart completely and ship it somewhere that does that kind of work?

Thanks also to combo52 for your insight and creativity with the timer!

Jim

 

[swestoyz]

Would it be possible to use another timer other than the original one on these machines

Timer motors and escapements can be interchanged between like-made timers, however you need to be careful that the motor RPM/rotation matches the escapement advancement speeds in order to emulate the original timer sequences. The internal timer circuitry is typically very specific to the operation of that individual washer. You may be able to use single contacts to repair a timer circuit (it's been done before), but you wouldn't be able to swap a '52 Kenmore timer on a '52 Frigidaire.

In this instance, it is pretty easy to swap out the original Ingraham motors for the later and much more plentiful Mallory-made motors.

What year did the WO-65-2 come out? Does the WO-65-2 have only one rinse?

The WO-65-2 came out in 1952, and was in production up until 1954. It had a single rinse. The wash tub would fill with water, and would continue to fill during the rinse cycle, thus the idea of the 'over flow rinse'.

Have any of you out there ever gone to the extent of having the whole machine re-porcelainized?

I'm not sure if anyone here has had an entire machine re-porcelainized. The costs may be prohibitive to have complete machine done, but I can see the benefit in having a single panel redone if needed.

John - I agree that the WO-65 is a better rinsing machine than the later over flow Frigidaires. I've noticed a signifigant difference between the WO-65 and the WI-56 in terms of rinsing.

Ben

 

[cornutt]

Ingraham

Ingraham was one of the major Connecticut clockmakers, going back to the mid-19th century. From the reading I've done, they were known mainly for their clock cases; in the 20th century they made cases for some other kinds of appliances such as radios. They went into electric clocks in the 1930s, and after WWII they make all kinds of clockwork-driven mechanisms. They were bought out by McGraw-Edison in 1967.

I've seen Ingraham mechanical clocks, but I've never seen any of their electric clocks. And in a quick look on Ebay just now, I see lots of mechanical clocks and watches, but only two of the pre-McGraw-Edison electric clocks. So it seems not that many of them survived. Apparently the motor problems weren't limited to Unimatic timers.

 

[mickeyd]

 

 

Thank you, Ben, I always wonderer about the time frame for the W O family. In 1955, the Frigidaire style changed dramatically and every year thereafter. But the familiar, signature, iconic styling of the W O was around for five years, unchanged except for the red nose reindeer light morphing into a lid switch. So then is this right, the W O was produced from 1950-52? Always got a kick out of the W O being the double rinser, while the W O <span style="font-size: xx-large;">2<span style="font-size: small;"> only rinses once......I know...... know ;-> Wondering if Robert's 49 is also a W O
</span></span>

 

Andy, according to Gordon, two other guys and me have the 62 LK, while John, Darren, and Gordon have the 64 LK, a cooler prettier machine. People love them because the they are versatile, complex, beautiful, and rare--interesting cycles and of course, they're turquoise.

<span style="font-size: xx-large;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span>
</span></span>

 

[jim]

Ingraham

David, thank you for your details about Ingraham. I remember some folks had an electric version of wind up mantle clocks made by Ingraham. I had one made by them but not a mantle type clock - given to me by my great aunt - it was oblong in shape, heavily nickel plated, art deco in design, very heavy, with a small light bulb at the bottom of the face. It's motor died within a year or so after I started to use it. (It had not been in use for probably 25 or more years when it was given to me in the mid 60s).

So I guess taking short cuts in production and use of inferior quality materials eventually comes back to haunt a company. Too bad more of the board members and CEOs of large corporations don't read history. So who says offshoring is a good thing for America? I say it's a traitorous cowardly way to make a quick buck on the backs of those who can least afford it.