Frigidaire Rollermatic Agitate Arm Rebuild

[joelippard]

Wanted to share with everyone a breakdown and rebuild I just finished on the agitate arm from my '69 Rollermatic.  This arm is the original one and had alot of play in it and was fairly loud.  Fortunately I had a spare one that I put on the machine quite a while ago and have just now got around to rebuilding this one should I need it in the future.

 

Here we have the arm as removed from the machine.

 

[joelippard]

Now here is the arm cleaned up and disasembled.  Tools needed for this project are a phillips screwdriver, 3/8 in open end wrench, 8mm hex head drive.  Take notice of the plastic cup that the spherical bearing rests in.  Inside the cavity of the arm is a felt wick and pressed into the top of the cavity is another plastic cup.  These cleaned up nicely in place so I saw no need to remove them.

 

[joelippard]

Here is a visual schematic of how the parts go together.  From left to right.  Agitate shaft coupling lock washer, agitate shaft coupling, coupling to spherical bearing lock washer, spherical bearing, lower cup, assembly retainer which screws into the shaft body, retainer lock washer, lock washer retainer screw.

 

You will remove this assembly by removing the lock washer retainer screw, then using a channel lock pliers to loosen the lock washer retainer and also the assembly retainer.  In the bottom of the spherical bearing is a hex head, turning this while holding the coupling to bearing retainer nut loosens the assembly and the parts separate as shown.

[this post was last edited: 1/29/2011-22:27]

 

[joelippard]

The Problem

with this assembly is here in the coupling.  Notice how this is off center, it is quite loose and flops around making all that noise.  I did a bit of thinking on how to fix this since we just can't rush right out to the Frigidaire dealer and get another one.

 

[joelippard]

The Fix

I thought quite a while on how to succesfully repair this and I came up with the idea of filling the coupling with a bonding epoxy that will keep this thing from flopping around for good.  To hold this in place while the epoxy sets up I made a collar to hold it centered by cutting the end off a rubber door stop guard.  Here is a picture of how I cut the pieces for the collar.

 

[joelippard]

Setting up

Here we have the coupling with the epoxy inside and the collar holding things in place.  I left this alone for several hours, meanwhile I oiled the felt wick in the body of the agitate arm using a small amount of zoom spout oil and allowing time for it to absorb.

 

[joelippard]

Complete

Here we have a complete and reassembled agitate arm, ready for service again.  After the epoxy had good setup time I removed the collar using a small flat blade screwdriver and then reassembled the agitate arm.  Take care not to over tighten the assembly retainer and make sure the spherical bearing is able to rotate and spin about in the body of the arm with only a small effort.

 

[gansky1]

Excellent idea for the coupling repair, Joe.  You'll have to keep us posted on how that holds up.

 

[rollermatic]

thanks for the

pics and info. always enjoy a thread on rollermatics. gotta get back to workin on mine here soon. took the winter off!

 

[phmorrow]

How Do you

Remove the agitate arm from the machine?

 

[joelippard]

Hi there, I've been following your other thread on your machines and I'm going to address your concerns there rather than in this thread.  This particular project was of a rather severe nature more so that what your needs are...