Girbau HS6008 Washer Extractor Bearing Change

[servischris]

Hello,

For those who dont know me etc, I work on commercial refrigeration and laundry equipment for a job. Today I did a bearing and dump valve change on a Girbau HS6008 machine, and thought Id share some photos of the job. Have a few but I was there to undertake a task not write a service manual haha! Saying that, I do quite like these machines.

Anyway, the pictures. Pic 1,

 

[servischris]

2

Pic 2, front off, allowing access to clamp band for removing tub and for getting to the dump/drain valve. It has an external tub gasket, which I prefer.

 

[servischris]

3

Pic 3, drum out, revealing lots of limescale, damamged heaters by use with collapsed bearings

 

[servischris]

4

Pic 4, inner tub with 2X double heaters (On this install, one set were not wired in)

 

[servischris]

5

Pic 5, tub, bearing housing spider and front half of tub taken out for cleaning. 8kg capacity tub.

 

[servischris]

6

Pic 6, tub back in. The yellow ring on the front of the tub is one of the machines counterweights, hidden by being fixed to the front of the inner tub. Cool!

 

[servischris]

7

Pic 7, the old dump valve. Its a poor photo sorry. The black box contains a board with a 12V dc motor with its own control unit which operates the drain valve. For those un aware, most commercial machines are gravity drain hence being mounted on a plinth etc. The blue part has a plastic arch shaped piece in it which rolls over to block off the outlet when washing and rolls clear to allow water and debris to pass on drain and extraction.

 

[servischris]

8

Pic 8. Complete and test cycle finished. Machine in picture is counting down the 120 seconds / 2 mins delay on the door interlock - delay includes slowing and stopping of tub from extraction. No leaks either! Job well done. Any questions, fire away.

Chris

 

[tvechs]

RE: Girbau HS6008 Washer Extractor Bearing Change

Really interesting! Off chance, do you know how old this particular model is? I am new to the forum and am based in the US. I am a bit of an appliance nut and own a couple small apartment buildings with commercial Speed Queens for ~6 apartments each. I never thought about the water hardness/mineral content affecting the internal componentry -- your post makes me want to open them up to check them out.

 

[servischris]

Age

Hey,

Yep, it was dated 17th October 2014 - so its 3 Y O but it does get hammered in the enviroment its in. The machine and where I live is in a very hard water area, unfortunatley its not running on a water softener which it and the other two machines in the same laundry room would all benifit from.

I love Alliance products, imo theyve really upped their game recently. We put in a S Q FL not too long ago. Really easy to work on and well thought through products. I wouldnt go opening it up if you can avoid it, just run a de scaler through it on the hottest longest wash, might be tricky if these machines are boiler fed and it isnt boosting the water temp for the de scaler to be effective.

Chris

 

[revvinkevin]

 

Chris, great pics, thanks for those and all the info!

 

Questions: 1. Obviously you're as expert as you do this for a living, but how long did it take you on this job, start to finish?

 

2. What type of building / facility / environment is this machine installed in, being there's no payment required?

 

3. You noted only one of the two heaters was connected.  Do you think that was an error when initially installed, or the owner didn't see a need for the 2nd heater?

 

4. Do you know what the spin speed is?

 

Thank much!

Kevin

 

[servischris]

Hi Kevin,

Job took around 4 1/2hrs including test cycles. The machine is in a residential care home for the elderly, operated by staff so no need for fitting coin units. If it were in a block of apartments or flats etc then it would be fitted with a coin meter - the cut outs are pre cut behind the rhs panel on the fascia with the on off switch. The heater has been wired out so it can be run on a reduced power supply - it's 240v 6.3kw with both elements, or 3kw or something like that as it is. Top extraction speed is 1000rpm.

Hope that makes sense!

Chris

 

[revvinkevin]

 

 

It does make sense, thank you so much!

 

Kevin

 

[earthling177]

Nice job, thanks for the pictures!

I wonder if anyone did all the math to see if it's cheaper to fix the machines every 3 years or so or use a higher quality detergent (or even just *measure* properly the detergent they use, perhaps they are using too much instead of too little?).

It's also very counterintuitive -- if someone asked me 3 days ago, I'd guess *most* of the hard water deposits would be in the lower part of the tub.

In any case, wow, it looks messy.

Cheers,
   -- Paulo.

 

[launderess]

"if someone asked me 3 days ago, I'd guess *most* of the hard water deposits would be in the lower part of the tub. "

Well for a top loading washer that might be true. Gravity would cause hard water minerals to settle towards bottom of machine. More so via neutral draining I shouldn't wonder.

With H-Axis washers all that spinning and constant tumbling would likely act to distribute whatever deposits are in wash/rinse waters along inside of outer tub and or otherwise between.

Consider also top loading washers since the tub fills with water for each wash does provide a chance to dissolve scum/scale between the tubs. This would likely be more true if detergent is properly dosed and or a good descaling product/cycle is used regularly.

 

[launderess]

Anyone care to own?

https://albany.craigslist.org/app/d/commercial-washing-machine/6173070666.html

 

[earthling177]

Launderess:

Yup, agree with what you said.

The reason I was startled though, is that we've seen our share of "crusty" tubs here when people post pictures of restoring machines. Also, pictures elsewhere in the web. Most of them show what I expect, which is the part with the most mineral buildup is where the water solution gets hottest, usually the heater itself and then the area nearby, also, when the solution gets hot most of the calcium and magnesium tends to precipitate near the hottest part and then the bottom of the vessel.

In this particular case, if I had to describe it just by the pictures and not knowing the history of the machine, I'd guess something went wrong with the machine during a particularly foamy wash and then everything dried in place, which also doesn't seem to make sense or happen in real life, but it was my first thought.

Most of the FL's I have seen open only had mineral buildup on the heater and right near it, then again, most of the ones I've seen technicians open to fix were machines that people knew were expensive and imported and tried to care for them as well as they could, but back then, a lot of people would bring the machines to America but did not import detergents that were designed to avoid such buildup.

Cheers,
   -- Paulo.