Neighbor's 4-year old Frigidare TL wont spin

[Cybrvanr]

I've been helping the neighbor out here with his 4-year old White-Frigidaire washing machine. Its a cheap, flimsy piece that's for sure. It seems to spin OK when there's no laundry in it, but when it's loaded with clothes, it just sits there and clicks, and the entire drum sort of slightly bumps back and forth just a little bit like the transmission is still in agitate mode.

I cannot see anything on it that shifts the transmission except for the direction the motor spins in. I know on Whirlpools, there's a spin solenoid that when engaged, activates the spin brake and puts the transmission into agitate mode, but in spin mode, it releases the brake and locks the agitator to the drum. I can't find anything like that in this one, so I am figuring the transmission is blown in this thing.

Any of you all got any clues?

 

[coldspot66]

You might try slipping the belt off the tranny pulley and turning the pulley by hand. Turning each way, there shouldn't be much resistance. If so, it's the tranny. Also is the belt stretched enough so that under a load it doesn't spin?

 

[frigilux]

Or you might---completely by accident, mind you--- hit it repeatedly with a 35-lb. sledge hammer.

 

[Cybrvanr]

It's dead!

It definitely ain't worth fixin. It's amazing how poorly engineered this thing is! It appears that some windings shorted out in the spin solenoid, which burned some contacts in the timer. When that happened, the cheap plastic gears in the timer stripped out. So, it needs two parts that are going to total over $120. This is for a washer, mind you, that cost him a good part of only $ 250. He went out and got himself a Maysung washer and his wife loves it! His younger boy loves washing the clothes splash around in it too!