Hoover Twin Tub Spin-Belt Replacement: Hints and Tips please?...

[wishywashy]

Hello again Gents! I'm in the process of sorting-out a couple of Hoover Twin-Tubs (one T1060 and one T1302), and I'm at the stage of removing the various belts to inspect them.

The Agitator Belt is a simple enough exercise to remove and replace, but the Spin and Pump Belts, however, are a different kettle of fish. I started writing out a longer version of this question that explained the subtle little problems involved with replacing the Spin Belt in particular, but thought it might be much simpler to instead just first ask whether anyone knew of the Factory-approved method for replacing either of the Belts - Spin or Pump? (but mainly the Spin...)

In order to save some of you TwinTub devotees the whole rigmarole of generously going out to the Shed and turning one of your little "babies" upside down (with the attendant ensconced water spilling out all over the floor into the bargain...) to have a re-familiarising look at the machine's general internal layout, may I please proffer the following photo instead, which is of the underside of a T1302 (with Belts removed), depicting:
- In the upper left corner of the photo, the Spin Tub Pulley
- In the upper right corner of the photo, the Spin / Pump Motor
- In the lower right corner of the photo, the Pump Pulley

So once again, the question is - Does anyone know what the Factory-recommended method is for replacing either the Spin Belt or the Pump Belt? (a scan out of the Service/Repair Manual would be great!!!)

Many Thanks in advance,
WishyWashy.

 

[hippiedoll]

GOOD LUCK!!!

that set up is not like the american-made, hoover 0510 twin tub. so, i have no clue as to how you would replace the belt on a set-up like that one??

i hope someone more familiar with the set-up that your hoover twin tub has, will chime in and give you an idea of how to replace the belts for the spinner and the pump.

keeping my fingers crossed for you.....

;o)

 

[wishywashy]

Thanks for the kind karma HippieDoll, but it looks like it's not going to start raining answers my way anytime soon. Not to worry, though - we had a hail storm over here in Brisbane the other day and that's keeping me busy for a while replacing some broken windows...

Best Wishes,
WishyWashy.

 

[anthony]

first

you undo the three phillips bolts then undo the allen screw situated in the metal ring that the earth lead is atached to press down on the cast iron wheel the bearing will pullout of its housing allowing the belt to be slipped out the rest is easy the elasticated belt simply slips on

 

[wishywashy]

Thanks Anthony - I think the 3 phillips-bolts you speak of must be the ones that screw up through the "Retainer Plate" into the underside of the "Spin Pulley", but for the life of me I can't see any allen-screw in that thin little ring that the earth-wire is hooked on to... Could you perhaps be thinking of a slightly different model?

It's neither here nor there, however, because the actual situation is that I'd already removed both the Spin and the Pump Belts on both of these machines before I even posted this Thread, but did so by instead undoing the bolts into the underside of the "Pulley Mounting", and then pushing the Pulley towards the Motor to unhook the Spin Belt, before sliding the belt off over the underside of the Pulley. It was only sometime afterwards that I belatedly realised that the correct balance of the Spin Tub might become upset in doing things this way, because the Pulley Mounting (which is at the bottom of the whole spinning Tub and Shaft assembly) is made largely out of rubber that has deformed to one side due to tension from the Spin Belt in that direction over the course of many years. Simply retightening the various mounting-bolts in their previous positions within their respective adjustment-slots therefore seemed to be be not quite the correct course of action in the circumstances...

I was therefore hoping that someone might reply with a method that took the said deformation of the rubber Pulley Mounting into account - perhaps by reversing it before rebolting it to the chassis. A sliding adjustment of the Motor Bracket would then also be required. But that would still leave open the question of whether or not there was some clever way of sliding both the Pulley Mounting and the Motor Bracket into the pefect positions in their respective adjustment-slots in the chassis-rails - all the time while maintaining the ideal tension in the Spin Belt, and ending up with the Spin Tub happily sitting right in the middle of its opening in the top of the machine when the Spin Belt had been fitted and the machine had been turned back over on to its castors...

There is also the parallel side-issue of the potential for damage from the mouunting-bolts for the Spin/Pump Motor's Bracket to the soft elastic Pump Belt, due to the extremely close proximity of both of the bolts (one of which shares duty as the Castor in that corner of the machine) to the Spin/Pump Motor's pulley.

Any other thoughts on the matter would be most welcome, but I'll just have to soldier on in the meantime as best I can.

Best Wishes and Thanks Again,
WishyWashy.

 

[gizmo]

Dear wishy washy

Relax. These are very basic machines. Hoover would not for one minute have considered deformation of the rubber mount with age - they would have been surprised your machine isn't at the tip by now. There will be no mention of it in any service manual.

The way you replaced the belt is absolutely normal. It doesn't matter if the spin can isn't perfectly centred. There is a lot of clearance between inner and outer spin cans. But if you want to get it perfect, you can (1) reverse the rubber mount as you suggested, and (2) don't fully tighten the mounting bolts. Nip them up gently so you can still tap the mount fore / aft. (gentle taps with hammer.) Then turn machine right way up, open spinner lid and check that the spin can is centred in relation to the opening in the top. If it is off centre, you can tap the pulley forward or backwards to get it sitting straight. Once you are satisfied it is right, turn the machine upside down again and fully tighten the mounting bolts.
But I repeat, this is perfectionism. The machine will be just fine with the spinner a touch off centre, in fact I bet plenty of them left the factory that way.

Chris.

PS:

There IS a sliding adjustment for both spinner bottom mount and the motor mount - the two bolts for the spinner, and the bolt and castor for the motor bottom mount, fit in slots in the chassis rail. Slacken the bolts as I described above and then you can slide within the limits of the mounting slot to adjust spinner alignment (First) and then the belt tension (second).

It's easy.

 

[wishywashy]

Thanks fellow-Aussie Gizmo-Chris for a too-the-point reply! It appears that the method you've described is about the only practical thing that can be done to optimise the end result.

The biggest hitch involved will be the fact that even once the Spin Can is provisionally centred via the adjustment-slots for the Pulley Mounting's bolts, that it will thereafter be pulled off-centre again by the tensioning of the Spin Belt via the moving-outwards of the Motor in the adjustment-slots for its pair of bolts. So it is a somewhat iterative process...

I'll just have to find (ie. take over...) a larger working space where I can more readily flip the thing over as necessary.

Best Wishes for now,
WishyWashy.

 

[bigwashingdayau]

Not looking forward to this.

Hi WishyWashy,

The layout of yours is the same as mine. I am about to do this and really am NOT looking forward to it (in comparison to replacing a pump in a modern F/L this looks like a breeze) but still not fun.

I was going to do the method you did use? which was removing the two bolts and having to re-align the spin can? However, I cant for the life of me get that bolt to unscrew below the earth wire. I am worried about deforming the spin buffer seal from the force i'm applying. It just won't budge. I've WD40'd it now for a third time and will try again in 24 hours.

Which of those 2 methods did you end up using? Any information would be greatly appreciated. (i'm not trying to hijack your thread) lol.

Cheers,
Adam.

 

[wishywashy]

Hello there Adam!

If you're trying to undo that earth-wire in order to change the Spin Belt, it sounds like I might have confused you by stating in Post #4 above that the bolts that need to be undone are to the "underside" of the Spin Pulley. I actually meant underside when the whole machine is the right way up on its castors, rather than when it is upside down for servicing purposes. So when you look at my photo in Post #1 above, the two bolts I'm referring to are at the top left of the photo. They have to completely come out in order to change the Spin Belt, because you pass the belt between the chassis-rail (that the bolts are going through), and the mounting-plate of the bearing assembly that the said bolts screw into (I hope that makes sense...)

One small refinement you can make to the general procedure is to reverse the orientation of the mounting-plate at the bottom of the bearing into which the two bolts screw, so that the bolts now thread into the opposite hole in the mounting-plate to which they were previously inserted. This is because the bearing's short rubber stem gets pulled to one side during the course of many years by tension in the Spin Belt, and it seems to me like a good idea to start reversing the process by reversing the mounting-plate's orientation. The spot in the adjustment slots at which the two bolts are respectively tightened up will obviously have to be altered compared to where they were tightened up previously. You might also have to undo the two bolts that secure the Motor Mounting Plate to the chassis-rail (one of the bolts is actually the castor wheel in that corner), and slide the motor back and forth a bit in order to get an aesthetically satisfactory alignment of the top of the Spin Can when the machine is upright on its castors. It should also be said that there is some transverse adjustment available for the Spin Pulley/Spin Tub by virtue of the fact that the mounting-plate for the little bearing has slots in it too, that are in the transverse direction to the slots in the chassis rail. You'll see them when you turn the bearing's mounting plate around after removing the two bolts. The alignment of the Spin Can within the opening through which it is accessed is very much an iterative process, with lots of turning the machine upside down and then right way up again, and lots of untightening and retightening of bolts going on, most likely including those that secure the motor's mounting plate. If you're not terribly fussy about aesthetics, it might be a good idea to just stick with changing and tensioning the new belt, and leave it at that...

Well, Good Luck with it all, and don't hesitate to shoot back any more questions you have. I might be a bit slow with replying though, because I'm in the middle of trying to fix up my other computer, and there's lots of hardware swapping going on, and one hell of a mess on my desk...

Best Wishes,
WishyWashy.

 

[bigwashingdayau]

Thanks Wishy Washy!

Thanks so much for replying! I'm sorry it took me so long to reply i've been having hassles with a parts company supplying my belt.. 1 month later I finally have it.

The way you described was the way I did it. The whole procedure took maybe 20 minutes including adjustments & tensioning. I was fortunate that I had silver markings where the bolts went so It was only minor fiddling I had to do.

I replaced the belt with one just a few mm thicker so hopefully it won't wear out as quick. Gee it has some spinning power now whoa! =D The spin up time being about 10-20 seconds to reach what sounds like top speed with no start-up slippage.

I cheated it with having to flip it over haha. I attached a pic of the way I did it lol.
Thanks for your help! & all everyone else's advice in the comments.
Cheers,
Adam.