Have you heard the news thats going round? Seamus Seamus has gone and found...

[robm]

What a great find! It's great when things like that happen. I think they spin about 700rpm (correct me if I'm wrong) which is quite fast for the time. I bet it wasn't cheap when it was new.

Happy restoring and all the best

Rob

 

[ricky5050]

congrats

Well done Seamus.

They are a fab machine , i have not had chance to do much else with mine as mine needs a door seal too! as do about 6 others!! mine also has a spin issue with a slipping clutch but i think that can be remedied with some shims. Chester Mike has one too and will recommend care in moving the beast as its suspension is made from very thin wire, which can snap and be a bugger to fix apparently. I attach some photos of mine where you can see the original transit brackets , I would recommend making some so you can lift and tip the beast without damage.
Also if you do plug it in, one tip before you do is to remove the motor first, (tilt the machine forward and it drops down ) and lubricate the shaft where the starter switch slides up and down, mine had stuck and instead of staying on a split second it was on continuously and nearly burnt the motor out until I figured out why it was getting so hot and noisy, a little wd40 and fine emery paper and mine now tumble, pumps and turbulates fine but will not spin without a shrieking howl at which second I kill the power.

I was thinking we could adapt two hoover door seals by joining them together as the opening may be a similar size to newer hoovers its just the depth that's needed as the the drum tilts down and back when full of water.

well done

Wash day? just forget it !!!

Richard

 

[matchboxpaul]

Brilliant find!

congratulations on a wonderful find there Seamus.

Yep it is an early 3226 and, although down to a small detail, is a version i haven't seen before - see my attached picture of a mate of mines 3226 and spot the subtle detail difference.

Re: the facia colour of the 3226 mentioned earlier by Simon. Although i could be wrong, my understanding of the 3226 is that they all had metallic blue facia stripes. Thing is, from different angles and under different lighting conditions, the strips can change shade and appear light blue right through to black.

The smaller picture shows the same machine as the main image, but taken under different conditions and angles - gives you an idea of what i mean in the above paragraph.

Once again - congrats on the find Seamus.
Cheers
Paul

 

[rolls_rapide]

Keymatic Door Seal

Would a seal from a different manufacturer do?

The porthole looks quite a small diameter, so would a Candy or a Zanussi seal do instead?

 

[gansky1]

Very nice find - it's amazing that so many of these have survived!

In the corner of the kitchen for 20 years?? It must have been a big kitchen - although, it would make a nice dog-food storage unit for the unenlightened ;-)

 

[chestermikeuk]

Hoover - The Product Of Experience...!!!

Well done Seamus, welcome to the club!!!you`ve sweated on this for a while, I must say it looks it great nick, at least all the panels come off for a re-spray when required...Just think you couldnt have made that up, using a twinny when one of these is in the corner, + another!!!

I bet the other machine is either a cream Hotpoint Empress or a creda debonair!! if it is the proverbial Mk41, ...well!!

Whats up with the cold water valve ?? has it been changed?? can peek the blue thing under the cover!!!I`m half way through the Qualtex catalogue trying to match old door boots, up to K for kelvinator!!, the later hoovers are a bit smaller on the outer front door, keymatic was slightly larger with a flip lip edge....Paul, small detail?? is it the Keymatic word logo??

If all fails they make a great bar at parties!!!

 

[matchboxpaul]

You got it Mike...

Well i did say a small detail.

Never seen a 3226 with its name written in upper and lower case!

This is what my spreadsheets have reduced me to - even down to getting the name as it appeared on the machines!

Visit to a shrink for me fairly shortly.
Paul

 

[seamusuk]

Great news :-D

The Turbulator(pulsator) is still there it just didnt show very well !. Also both it and the drum appear to turn freely . Am just off to get some random door gaskets from our other shop lol !

 

[seamusuk]

More pics!

The Turbulator

 

[seamusuk]

Back off

.
Look at the 20+ years worth of cobwebs!

 

[seamusuk]

Valves

And rating plate

 

[seamusuk]

Complicated!

.

 

[seamusuk]

Looking up

Showing slight oil leak from gearbox? also patched/repaired sump hose, these need thinking about!

 

[seamusuk]

Another

.

 

[seamusuk]

Finally

The pump

 

[JerseyMike]

Wow!

What an amazing story. It's hard to believe that it sat in the corner of a kitchen for the last 20 years.

It looks very complicated.

I hope that you find a proper boot and that it's up and running again without only some minor repairs.

Mike

 

[candyrijk]

Hi I have read your article about the hoover keymatic and I would like to ask if you can do a favour for a friend of mine, who has 3 hoover keymatic but none of them has the complete clutch system that put the pulsator into work.

What I need is to understand exactly the size of the spring and spring cup that is part of the clutching system.
You can see in the back of the machine where the drum drive pulleys are that there is a kind of an arm that engage a littel flap present on a teflon cup that covers a spring that drive the pulsator when the outer cup that covers it is kept steady.

Can you provide close pictures of the two components... the outer teflon cup and the inside spring along with the mesures... like size of the spring, outer and inner size of the cup, and so on?

I need this data to make new spares in order to make the keymatics pulsator into working order as it seems it is not possible to find original hoover spares for this components.
It seems that back in the 60s the pulsator clutching system was the main problem of the machine because it tend to stay engaged once it had been activated causing damage to the laundry when the pulsator keeps on spinning while there is no water in the wash tub... for this reason most of the machines had the spring and cup removed and were basically transformed into an ordinary tumble washer. No one seems to have never complained for the machine not using the pulsator and solve one of the main cause of fault in the keymatic.
At the end the spares were no more available and the Hoover Company decided not to include the pulsator in the keymatic deluxe that followed the early models.

I hope you can help me with this because i would really like to have our keymatic in full working order pulsator incuded.

Best Wishes
Ric and Seb

 

[brisnat81]

New Sump hose

Hi Guys and Congratulations Seamus,

For those who remember, I recently aquired a slightly later version of this machine, all in good working order, however with a brittle and badly cracked hose.

After some experiementation with some 45mm PVC pipe, a tub to pump hose of a Hoover 7xx, 8xx, 9xx series TL machine and a top radiator hose of a TD/TE Cortina, I now have a new sump assembley.

It all fits fine, I've just been waiting for the silicone to cure around the diversion pipe to the pressure switch. Now that's finally happened, I'll fit it on the weekend and hopefully experience my first Keymatic load.

The assembley sits a fair bit lower than the original, but as the only section that moves is the tub it shouldnt cause too many problems

Regards

Nathan

 

[chestermikeuk]

Keymatics

The model I found on ebay had been in the corner of the sellers dads kitchen WITH ANOTHER ONE NEXT TO IT!!!! 2 of them and they didnt use them he had a hoover twinny...lol, he was a repair man and could bear to throw them...

Nathan, OMG, what ingenuity, I knew you could do it, what a contraption...is it the angle of the photo or is that pressure hose bigger than what was on it???

Seamus interesting patches on the original hoses, I would use some of the PVC black plumbing mastic tape (the new latex stuff) to wrap around it all before you water test it, also please support the drum when tilting back !! it puts all the pressure on that thin support wire, thats when mine snapped!!!

Also, whats the serial number, cant quite read it!!, Heres a pic of all the hosework to the machine, they must have needed their own rubber works for this lot!!!!

 

[chestermikeuk]

Pulsator Clutch Spring!!

Hi Ric & Seb, congratulations on your machines, fascinating to look at, needs lots of patience to work on, but very much rewarding I`m sure, here is an exploded diagram, is it spring 914 you need dimentions of??