Learning my ABC...

turquoisedude · Jun 28, 2016

This scared the wits out of me at first... That hole in the agitator base plate looked like it was a bad thing. But after I cleaned it up, I realized the hole is perfectly round and concluded this was intentional. Given that the original boot was pretty torn up, there had been a good amount of water gathering in here. That problem with go away on re-assembly.

Well, assuming I can get the washer back together again... As mentioned, I'll have to put my thinking cap on to replace the original gaskets. Hopefully there will be more progress to report after this coming long weekend.

christfr · Jun 30, 2016

your getting there lookin good

stricklybojack · Jun 30, 2016

.
Lovin' this Paul!

turquoisedude · Jul 4, 2016

So....

I spent most of last week visiting with jetcone (Jon), Greg, Fred Nelson, and Phil down on the 'cape and did some substitute parts shopping along the way. My plan for this past weekend was to water-test the outer tub to make sure that center boot was still OK (It looked good, but looks can be deceiving in this game!).

I intended to use the old tub to pump drain hose; probably not a good call to begin with but I managed to mess it up when I tried to reinstall it...

turquoisedude · Jul 4, 2016

While cleaning it, I noticed a small tear which was probably the reason for the rust at the inner tub outlet and leakage on the pump itself.

Trying to get the not-all-that-flexible-anymore lip around the tub drain outlet did not go according to plan... As my late grandmother would say 'Well, that's torn it, duckie'. Sigh....

I tried to get a sink drain flange like what I used on the '57 Hotpoint but I bought one that was just a wee bit too big. I'll be doing a tour of the local plumbing stores in and around St-Hyacinthe this week to hopefully find something that will fit.

I was kinda ticked off, but I had a couple of new machines to play with and that took my mind off things. I'll be posting about them in detail but just to tease everyone, who knows what the Jacobs company made back in the late 1940s??? Stay tuned...

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

So....

The stars aligned very nicely late last week. Hubby headed off to a summer meeting on Thursday and the weather forecast was looking iffy for most of the weekend of the 9th and 10th of July. But since I'm retired, I took off on Thursday night bound for Ogden with one mission in mind - get that ABC back together again!

I still had some parts to replace though and I made some creative purchases... Anyone who heard rumours of weird-sounding guy in the weatherstripping aisle of the Home Depot in Cape Cod, well, that was me! LOL

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

But I still had to figure out what to do for a tub drain... I wound up using a bathtub drain flange. It fit, but I couldn't find a nut to fasten it to the tub bottom. I set it ever so carefully into place with LOTS of blue silicone.

I let that set overnight on Friday.

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

Imagine my relief when I poured some water into the tub Saturday morning and found it held vater!

So, while waiting for the inner cabinet to dry, I figured I'd spiff up the wash tub. 60-some odd years of detergent residue came off surprisingly easily.

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

Now for my first creative washer part substitution using weatherstripping...

At the top of an ABC or Kelvinator washer there is a rubber strip that covers the water exit holes so that all the water doesn't get splashed out during the wash cycle. But when the washer spins, the strip will flex and allow the water out. Needless to say the original strip was in pretty bad shape in the washer, but with a bit of cutting, a self-adhesive door sweep did the trick!

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

I had noticed an awful lot of grease and goo on the inside of the washer cabinet. Some of the 'things' looked like dust bunnies that had detoured via the La Brea Tar Pits...

I used varsol to clean the base up and wow, what a difference it made. I even wipe the generations of dust off the wires - can't make any mistakes now... LOL

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

The last thing I did on Saturday was to clean up the cover of what ABC called the 'vacuum breaker' for the fill flume. It looked pretty bad, so I treated it and the part of the back cabinet where this is installed to a coat of appliance epoxy.

And while this dried overnight, I treated myself to an evening of Hi-Fi therapy starring Benny Goodman, the '56 GE Hifi, and several darn nice gin and tonics....

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

Sunday dawned cloudy and rainy. YES! A perfect day to spend in the garage and not be guilted out by the dog.

So I started by cutting a new gasket for the the vacuum breaker. I managed not to cut my fingers - bonus. The darn thing just kept reminding me of the cup for an athletic supporter... Yeah, the varsol and paint fumes were getting to me... LOL

On reinstallation, I figured a coat of blue silicone wasn't going to hurt.

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

So, now I was ready to get the tub back in and start re-installing the spin and drive mechanisms and pulleys.

wiskybill · Jul 12, 2016

tub drain...

Paul,

You could easily make a nut for the flange.

Purchase a plastic bathtub drain and hacksaw enough of the
threaded portion to create a nut.

Would make it stronger when the hose is attached.

Looking good so far!

Bill

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

It seemed easy enough, but I made a near-fatal boo-boo with the order of the thrust washer, spring, and woodruff key mounted above the spin pulley. When I tried to spin the tub manually, nothing happened...

Here's the lesson learned - take lots of photos during disassembly! These and the '55 Kelvinator manual got me out of this potential mess.

Getting the agitate pulley off was a bit of a pain. It was a LOT of a pain putting it back on again - EEESH! I had to heat the pulley to loosen it up. But when I tried to push it onto the agitator shaft, I kept pushing the shaft out.

A sledge hammer and a box of tiles helped. Hubby would have been better in this case however...

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

While parts-shopping on Friday, I definitely remembered to get new belts. So on they went on Sunday!

It was going fine until Canyon said he was going to call the Eastern Townships Neglected Puppies helpline. I told him he couldn't dial the phone with his paws. Never saw a dog flip me off before....

[this post was last edited: 7/12/2016-16:21]

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

So I fed him, but I kept at it. I wanted to get the pump back on.

The good news was the substitute drain to pump hose I had fit the drain flange I cobbled in. The bad news is that it was too big for the pump inlet... Not a problem when you have lots of spare 1 1/2 flexible tubing lying around. Full disclosure - I did coat the top of the inlet area with more blue goo. The pump seal between the base and housing was shot, so I beefed that up with some liquid gasket.

But there was just one thing I couldn't figure out... The pump is driven by a drive wheel that contacts the agitate belt, but I couldn't seem to make them connect. I thought perhaps the drain hose would provide tension, but this didn't make any sense to me. Yeah, I know, this is ME saying that... LOL I figured I'd sleep on that one.

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

So for my last trick on Sunday, I figured I'd make some more creative use of weatherstripping.

A replacement seal for a floor sweep made a good fitting sub for the gasket that had been at the rear of the washer top. A little cut here and some blue goo to hold things in place and voila!

The top of the washer cabinet had a gasket that was rusty and too inflexible to re-use, so I called on my old pal closed-cell foam tape. Again, some more blue goo to hold things in place and it seemed good to go.

At this point I was ready to pass out from hunger, so I had a brief bath in varsol (my fingers looked like a Smurf's...) and I called it a day.

turquoisedude · Jul 12, 2016

So on Monday July 11th, the first thing I did after putting on a pot of coffee was to consult the '55 Kelvinator manual. That problem with the pump tension I was concerned about? I simply had to install a spring to tension the pump. Woo hoo!

With the pump safely installed, I figured it was high time I did something about water supply. I had the original water valve but I honestly didn't expect it to be good. When I tested the solenoid on the hot water inlet side of the valve, I found it was completely dead. However, the coil on the '55 Norge solenoid that I replaced fit and still worked, so I tried it. Much to my amazement, the thermostatic components in the valve still worked. Huge bonus!

And of course, I couldn't forget the agitator boot. The original one was pretty far gone and amazingly enough, I found a source for new ones!! But before installing the agitator drive plate, I used my brand new grease gun to add some fresh grease to the drive shaft.

I replaced the power cord and put the washer top back on... So what's next??