How Cool Is This Water Valve?

[Unimatic1140]

but I am wondering if the valves "clunk" when they are energized
Brent they probably won't cluck when energized, if so it would be too light to hear with water running through them.

Was 1947 the first post-war model year?
Hi Dan, yes the earliest post-war automatics were available was 1947 as far as I can tell.

It is good to hear that you have NOS seats for this.
Ben the NOS seats I have actually wont fit this valve, they are shaped slightly differently.

I wonder if they "cheaped" the later models in order to lower the price?
Mike I'm sure it was to get the retail price down, this very early GE was the most expensive of all the early Automatics.

Why on earth would they plunge warm water to the outer tub?
Jon, both hot and warm water is plunged into the outer tub, then is pumped up with the recirculation pump. When the inner tub overflows and the water level rises in the outer tub, the machine knows its full and begins agitation and recirculation.

 

[jamiel]

Take yourself back to 1945-6-7. Bendix was out with an automatic before the war. You work for GE or GM and are an engineer. You're working hard on an excellent design

Six months after you launch the product at $350 or so, Beam comes out with an OEM which can be sold by Gambles (Western Auto, local department stores ...) for $279 and nine months or so later Whirlpool/Sears (clearly the big kahuna) comes out with one for $269 (albeit a bolt-down)

Remember, you're not working for KitchenAid, you work for a multi-line appliance company which needs the volume to make the business case work and keep all the returning servicemen employed in Dayton/Louisville

There was a crash "cheapening" effort in place. Had Beam not launched the cheap machine so soon (was it a soft-mount?) neither GM nor GE would have been forced to cheapen the machines so quickly, prices would have stayed high and

JL