Frigidaire Water Bellows - A Discussion

[joelippard]

Posted below is a photo of a water bellows that has been on my Rapidry Rollermatic for two years.  Take a note of the hole in the side of it.  Below is another such smaller hole and yet another on the opposite side that is not pictured.  This will be the third bellows I have installed on this machine in 4 years.  Also noteworthy is the fact that nothing ever goes into this machine that could cause harm to the bellows or the machine itself.  Anything with a zipper is always turned inside out as well.

 

I'd like to hear from you all some possible opinions about what could have caused this to happen.  My guess is going to be that it is a part that is old and has been around for many years.  Another item worth noting is that with the few spare bellows that I have they are coated with glycerin and stored in zip lock bags.

 

This leads me to a different discussion on the same subject.  What will us Frigidaire lovers do in the future about water bellows?  A perfectly good machine can be rendered useless without this small but vital part.  I don't know about you guys but I don't exactly have a storehouse of these things and I don't find them for sale either except on a very infrequent occasion.  I'm 38 and I plan on living at least another 50 years or longer if I can get it!  Certainly I want to keep my machines running that long and I will plan for their disbursement at my death to younger club members.

 

My point is that I'd like to see if there is an interest here in banding together as club memebers and finding someone to reproduce these for us.  I can't imagine it will come at a low cost however.  I have located a company called Columbia Engineered Rubber Inc.  Their website states that they can custom design rubber bellows.  Coincidentally they are located in Dayton, Ohio.  I have not contacted them however because I wanted to see first what type of interest would be generated here.  So let's talk about it guys, tell me what you think and how you feel.

 

Thanks,

Joe

 

[turquoisedude]

I'd be interested in both the water and oil bellows - I want to keep that mint 63 Deluxe of mine running for a looooonnnng time!

 

[washerlover]

Funny, I've been thinking about the same thing -- wanting to keep our machines going for another 40-50 years (I'm 48), but worried about parts availability. I own a 1-18 among others, and would happily chip in to ensure manufacture of washing machine/dryer parts in the future.

 

[washer111]

Custom Parts Manufacturer:

If an intrepid member had the right contracts, could you not (perhaps) get some sort of rubber company to remanufacture the bellows?

Perhaps expensive, but none-the-less possible, I'm sure (Where there's a will, there's a way!). 

[this post was last edited: 1/21/2013-23:53]

 

[mickeyd]

Joe Joel

I had no idea you were so young-- good for you.

Pulsating thoughts: In Sandy's thread, Eugene had playfully dared one of us to disparage the Unimatic, and I had to smile because as a boy I was sick of them, since so many people in my family had them. Bored to the point of distaste. When our second Unimatic gave up the ghost and we replaced it with a Rollermatic, my faith was reborn. And now, acquiring them, some thirty years later, I would not want to be without either one. They're THAT good, and I'm forever smitten, irrevocably so.

Although I won't likely live 50 more years, I do expect to need another bellows one day. In the gun debate, a commentator spoke about the possibility of of making ammunition magazines or clips with the new 3D printers. These 3D facsimiles are plastic, but is the day far away when such a printer or its next iteration will be able to make a viable Frigidaire Bellows ?

Just a thought.

 

[rberryiii3]

Bellows

 

Since i'm a new i-18 owner in california with the machines garaged in Portland I don't know where the the bellows goes can someone fill me in and yes I be interested in buying a few of these....thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[washer111]

rberryiii3

I don't want to sound hostile or rude, but my post before was merely a suggestion. If someone knew of an appropriate rubber company, they could perhaps send a part in, and have it "replicated" (Sorry about that Star Trek reference there...)

 

But as you'll agree, if someone could find such a company, who would be willing to produce a number of these, the club here might be in luck! 

 

I'll alter my original post so as to avoid confusion. 

 

[rberryiii3]

Bellows

Sorry

 

[d-jones]

I have a question for vintage Frigidaire owners.

The first washing machine I remember from childhood in the mid sixties was a Frigidaire WD-61. Though a great performer when it came to cleaning, it drove my dad nuts with endless bellows changes. He said it seemed to need a new one every two to three years, as they kept getting holes in them exactly like the one show above. And at that time none of those replacement bellows had been on the parts shelf all that long. So is this just one of the hazzards of owning vintage a Frigidaire? Or have others here had better luck with this troublesome part than Joe and my dad?

 

[philr]

About a week ago, when I replaced the water bellows in my 1964 Multimatic washer, I thought exactly the same! And I searched a bit on this site and I found other posts from about the same company and I visited their website asking myself exactly the same thing!

I'm 36 and I'd like to keep my machines going for as long as I live too! And I do have other spare bellows but those I got with the "D" hole for Unimatic/Multimatic/Rollermatic washers seem to have stiffened with time. I had to stretch the new bellows with a shoe enlarger as the rubber was too stiff. In fact, the damaged water bellows seemed softer and more pliable than the new (NOS) bellows I installed.

I think it would be great if we could get some decent quality reproduction parts for our machines.

So there's interest in getting water bellows and oil bellows on my side too!

 

[earthling177]

First of all, sorry to hear people are having trouble with the parts, and I do hope y'all can find a manufacturer that can reproduce the parts for y'all, those are wonderful machines.

On the other hand, and please take this with a grain of salt 'cuz I don't have those machines, I'm wondering about the storing and handling of those parts... I am aware that I may be about to ask enormously stupid questions, but what the hey, my intention is to help.

First off, did the parts *come* stored in anything, glycerine or otherwise? I know that rubber in general (condoms or otherwise) can't stand oils and grease or even glycerine for long. Even some "synthetic" rubbers have trouble with that and, given that that's the water bellows instead of the oil one for the transmission, they may have used a composition that is more resistant to laundry chemicals but less to oils (lots of times compromises with rubber, neoprene etc have to be made because it's hard to have stuff that resists both).

Second question, is it a good idea, a bad idea, makes no difference whatsoever etc to first soak the water bellows in warm or hot water before installing? Y'know when you can break a piece of plastic or thin metal by flexing it multiple times? I was wondering, if the machine starts with a stiff bellows that had not been allowed sufficient time to soften, wouldn't it do the same thing and put a crease that is weaker and will break more easily later?

Cheers all,
-- Paulo.

 

[combo52]

Frigidaire Water Bellows

On the 1960s machines and the 1-18s [ the machines I worked on the most ] the water bellows held up very well. On the solid tub machines they could usually be counted on for at least 10-15 years of heavy use and the 1-18s were even better [ I bet that I never saw more than a few 1-18s in the field that ever ruined a outer water bellow ].

 

But just like many washer problems today the frequent replacing of WBs that Davids father did back in the 1960s probably had something to due with either local water conditions or laundry aids that were being used in the wash. Such as hard water, using real soap that contains lye, using a lot of LCB and of coerce using too little detergent. The problems that Joe is having today is likely related to the age of replacement parts that are available.

 

In the future hopefully we will get lucky and find an off the shelf part that will work or maybe we can find someone that can make these parts for us. I know in the case of rubber door boots for Philco-Bendix FL washers and Combos boots have been found in England that are still being made. Didn't Frigidaire sell and build washers in Australia? maybe their is a parts source some where else in the world.

 

[volvoguy87]

Parts.

If I recall, some Kelvinator boots have been reproduced and someone posted a thread recently about Westinghouse washer boots up for a possible production run. It is entirely possible to reproduce rubber parts, but they aren't free. In order to commission something like this, you would have to have a good example of the part you want reproduced and you'd have to know out of what material you'd like it to be made. Would the original material be best, or would a more modern material hold up better and/or be easier to install? I don't know much about Frigidaire bellows (having no firsthand experience with them) but could they be redesigned to make them more relaible and/or easier to install, and would that be a good idea?

Since commissioning a production run can be somewhat pricy, whoever manages such a thing would need a good estimate of the number of bellows to be produced, and KEEP THE MOLDS for future reproductions. They may also want to make a quantity of spares for future use and/or sales/gifts to other club members. The more bellows you make, the less espensive each one would be.

Clear as mud?
Dave

 

[goatfarmer]

<blockquote>
Since i'm a new i-18 owner in california with the machines garaged in Portland I don't know where the the bellows goes can someone fill me in and yes I be interested in buying a few of these....thanks.

</blockquote>
To answer your question, they go under the agitator. They form a sort of seal, when the shaft is going up and down.

 

 A member here, fltcoils, I believe had talked to a few manufacturers a while back. I don't recall what the outcome was.

 

[rickr]

I would think that how well the bellows were stored would have a lot to do with how long they would last in service. If they are stored in a hot attic, or garage, the life span would be much shorter. I have a few extra, and I keep them in a box in the basement, while my other washer spare parts are stored in a loft in my garage.

 

[joelippard]

To answer a few questions here...

 

I should have made it clear that 1-18 bellows are quite different from the rest of the line.  I have examined an unused one in person and man is it thick and heavy.  I have never seen one fail and I don't know how it could unless a nail got to it.  Here, were are specifically talking about the D-hole standard bellows used from 1947 to 1969.

 

Mickeyd, I hadn't really thought about 3-D printing but wouldn't it be cool if someone here had one.

 

Washer111, that's precisely what I'm referring to is finding a reputable company who would be willing to do this and I think I may have that information.

 

John, thank you for chiming in here and I was hoping you would do so with your years of experience.  Just to provide further knowledge I use powdered Tide exclusively with 20 mule team borax added to it, all my washes are either hot or warm accompanied by a warm or cold rinse.  I too felt the issue may be age related.

 

I feel that we should stick with the original compound as it was designed and engineered.  If we as a group decided to do this I would provide the company with a bellows to examine.

 

I've received it on good authority that glycerin would not harm the rubber of the bellows and storage in an air tight container is helpful as with most rubber time and exposure degrade it to a more brittle state.

 

Let's keep talking about this guys!

 

[tsteves5]

3D Printing

We have a 3D printer at work. It only works in solid plastic. I've also discovered that the "resolution" isn't all that good and I wouldn't trust it for anything air or water tight.

 

[jetcone]

After working many years on

the Rollermatic machines,& unimatic machines I found the GM produced bellows would last 10 years easily,these went into machines I rebuilt for sale that were daily drivers. I also found the abundant after market "westwood" and gemline bellows would last at best 2 years no more. So there is a difference in the quality, and maybe the machine D-jones had was being serviced by an independent repairman who was using after market bellows to increase his margins.

GM built a solid product back in the day, so did GE as they were hot competitors.

So any new molding should start with what the heck GM used for their rubber, I have tried over the years to find the molds. The farthest I got was a tip from an old worker retired from a rubber plant ( not GM's) , he said the best way to find the molds is to contact the rubber molding Unions in the upper midwest,they would know who made what for who. it would be A LOT cheaper if you could find the molds today. They usually weren't destroyed as they were very expensive to make.

I have a list of the molder's marks, its incomplete but its a start if anybody wants to take up the search.

 

[combo52]

Frigidaire Water Bellows

Good thoughts Jon, it would be really cool if some of these old molds were ever found.

 

GM Frigidaire and GE Appliances were not competitors? I would dare say that they BOTH thought they had a better washer as would ever other manufacturer of automatic washers back in the years that GM was building appliances.