LADY KENMORE COMBO TUB LINT REMOVAL

[gyromatic]

I thought it might be of some interest to those of you that own these combos to see how much lint collects during many years of use.When I changed the bearings I deciced to take the cylinder out as well and clean it all.As you can see alot of build up.This shortened the drying time,and also reaches high spin much faster. It is well worth the time to do this.

 

[gyromatic]

Lint removal

Picture 2

 

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More Lint removat

Pic 3

 

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More Lint removat

Pic 4

 

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More Lint removat

Picture 5

 

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More Lint removat Removed

Picture 6

 

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More Lint removat

pic7

 

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More Lint removal removed

Pic8

 

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more of the lint removal already cleaned

Pic9

 

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and finally the back lint removed.

Pic 10

 

[tomturbomatic]

The reason that the blower wheel was not badly linted up is revealed by the little hole below it. The machine fills through two sides of the blower housing which causes the wheel to turn somewhat and the water flushes the lint off the vanes and then the water enters the tank through that little hole. Lint accumulation in the blower wheel is one of the things that kills those little imported combos because they don't have a method of flushing the lint off the wheel like this brilliantly, if slightly maniacally, designed machine.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

WOW

John,

This was really fascinating - thanks very much for sharing!!!

Those porcelain parts are really in nice shape. I was expecting much worse. Are they all usually this well preserved?

Gordon

 

[gyromatic]

? about electric kenmore combos

It would be interesting to see if there was more of a build up in the electric models.Mine is gas.Maybe it would be the same.Not sure.All that build up gets saturated during the wash cycle,and I question if it drys completely during the dry cycle.

 

[gansky1]

Fascinating, John. Thanks for the pictures!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Believe me, as hot as that machine gets during dry, the lint dries out. That's why you don't have rust under it. The drying does not use the most efficient airflow pattern. The air comes out of the heater box near the front edge of the basket and fully half of the basket is solid because of the ballast tanks, so the air hits the solid surface 50% of the time and is deflected away from the interior of the basket and the tumbling load. That wasted heat rapidly heats up the interior of the machine which actually helps prevent the lint from sticking to the interior surfaces because they are hot and dry by the time the load is at the point of giving up lint and the action in these is so gentle that not that much lint is produced. It does look like it was used with maybe insufficient detergent and/or hard water for all of that buildup because the lint has to have something to stick to. The porcelain is pretty smooth so you would need a film on the porcelain to hold the lint.

 

[magic_clean]

From

a user perspective, what can you do to minimize / reduce this accumulation? Too bad they didn't have a "clean" washer cycle!

L.P.

 

[combo52]

29" Kenmore Combo lint Cleaning.

My brother Jeff and I had at least two dozen of these apart for the same type of cleaning over the years. I never noticed any difference between the gas and electric machines when it comes to lint buildup. But as Tom mentioned the machine that you have probably could have benefited from softer water or more detergent so minerals would not build up for the lint to stick on.

 

The porcelain parts of these combos usually fared pretty well, so the overall condition is what we usually would see under all the lint and mineral build up. These machines were easy to over-suds so many users used way too little detergent rather than trying to find and use the proper low sudsing detergents, so we did see some pretty nasty machines.

 

I have one of the last LKM combos in our collection that was made in the fall of 1971, I got it in late 1977 from a guy that hulled away old appliances for Sears. It is very badly mineraled up as he said that the customer only used Arm&hammer powered detergent. One of these days I will get around to restoring it and converting it to gas for my home laundry room. But I know it is going to need a lot of cleaning.

 

[a440]

Fantastic Pictures!
Thanks!
Can't wait to see it all put back together and running.
It looks new after your cleaning!
Brent

 

[jetcone]

Wow John

What a heck of a lot of lint that is. Nice job- as usual!

I don't remember how linted up mine was since it was 25 years ago I had it apart, but I think it was close.

But the outer tub was rusted to hell with very large holes around the sump. Thats why it got thrown out. I hauled it off the dump pile.

I had to cut ss plates and siliconed them to the tub to seal up the holes, it has never leaked but she is a cantankerous machine!! John and I have been trying to get her going ever since, and in 25 years she's only been able to do 15 loads, she keeps breaking down.

Can't wait to see your finished project!!

jon