Japanese twib tub washers

[unclejohn]

Hi!

Digged the web to find a few pictures of two 'japanese' washing machines:
One is, apparently, a 1971 japanese designed Hitachi (then sold in Australia)

 

[unclejohn]

The other is, well, unknown brand japanese twinnie. Could this be a Panasonic or something?? Cool model anyway! Model and year of manufacture unknown:

 

[unclejohn]

an other pic:

 

[cfz2882]

a japanese twin tub is one item currently missing from my washer fleet,used to find these at the dump on occaison-liked to salvage the electric drain pumps and ~1/8 HP split capacitor wash motors and apply these to different uses.At least 4 different brands were found at the dump in the early 1980s when i was salvaging these:hitachi,sanyo,toshiba,matsushita/panasonic, and one had "brother"on several components-IIRC the "brother"was a monkey ward rebadge.One of the more common ones i used to find always had hose trouble:somehow the rubber used for the internal drain water hoses would react with plastic fittings or pump body they were clamped to and the rubber would crumble and leak at that point-this on machines that were~8-12 yrs old in 1982.

 

[unclejohn]

Looking for a Hitachi twin-tub (old model) my grandmother had in the early 70s - must be really scarce these days never seen one in decades.

 

[arbilab]

I wish there were more on these machines and that they were still sold in the US. I had a 1973 Panasonic and besides being a stellar performer I could pick it up by myself and it would fit in my VW bug with the pass-seat removed.

In a warm climate you can wear a shirt or use a towel from a 1700rpm spin. Both tubs were dual speed, pulley on the offset swash and direct on the spinner. Good turnover and no balance issues. Standalone pump with W/S valve, only thing it didn't have was internal suds return, had to move the hose.

 

[matthewza]

My grandparents had a Toshiba. It lasted for close to 40 years. They bought in when my mom was still in school and my gran only did washing once a week. So once a week for many years it did washing for 5 people. Later when my gran died, I'd go to my grandfather every saturday and do his washing. The machine was a tank. Worked like a bomb, spun great and just got on with the job at hand.
However, my mom and I are not twinnie fans (I'll play with them but would never have 1 as a daily driver) so when we moved in with our trusty Defy front loader and Speed Queen, the Toshiba went to charity. But old twin tubs are quite popular on the classifieds here in SA