POD 2/27/2017

[brucelucenta]

Not too sure the exact year of this ad, sometime in the late 60's I expect. The V-12 had magically increased it's capacity to 16 pounds by then. Soon after this model they introduced the extra large 18 pound claimed capacity model, which was made until the new plastic tub models.

 

[gyrafoam]

IMO GE did themselves (and their customers) no favors when they ditched the Spiral Activator.

 

[mayken4now]

Never one of my favorite machines. Had one to play with and a possible restore at one point, too much bother for something I really didn't like. Went to the curb.

Steve is right, GE made a huge mistake ditching the Spiral Activator.

 

[alr2903]

POD= a model with the wire clothes guard. What year did they change to plastic?

 

[pulltostart]

I believe that change was made with the 1973 models.

 

lawrence

 

[repair-man]

Was there a reason that GE went to the strait vane agitator. And how long was it used ? GE washers where what we had growing up. A 1968 model with black Bakelite spiral Activator replaced in 1984 with a white plastic spiral Activator. I don't recall seeing many strait vanes.

 

[yogitunes]

going to a straight vane allowed more room in the tub, hence they could push the issue of calling it a 16lb machine....

the ramped V12 was sort of a cone shape, which took up more space....even in the 60's they offered another version of the ramped activator, with vanes sticking out all the way up the shaft versus the V12's version tapering off as it got towards the top.....

since the 18lbs machine was created, it had about a 10 year run of straight vane, there were two styles....

and somewhere around 78-79 they went with the ramped for both size machines...

the filter flo and agitator mounted filter was a GE exclusive......

Hotpoint and JCPenney machines were rim-flo machines.....in place of the mini-basket, many used a 2-n-1 handwash agitator....straight vane at first, and that too went to a ramped version...if I am correct, the 2-n-1 was available on the 18lb machines only...

during the last run, only mini-basket machines got a filter pan....as in trying to cut expenses, one transmission was used for both size machines...

 

[gyrafoam]

I think the first of these I saw was in the mid-sixties, maybe '66 or so. I was stunned at the lack of roll-over, something not lacking with the spiral design. Rinsing was pretty lame as it did good to get the load unstuck from the sides of the tub never mind rolled over even once. Used numerous coin op versions over the years, especially in the '70's. I would watch unsuspecting people stuff the machines full and often wondered how anything down in the fins survived the onslaught. Must have ended up in the lint filter. Eventually they increased the height of the fins and roll-over improved,however, I don't know what year they switched to this version. Must have been in the 80's. A neighbor of mine bought a brand new MOL 18 in '89 and it had a spiral Activator.

 

[ryanm]

My Brother just replaced his GE washer which was bought in 1986!! It had the mini basket and lasted all these years which was amazing to me, it was just last week that he replaced it with a Speed Queen top loader. I believe he never even had a repair on it until it dies a few weeks ago..... that would never happen with any of the machines made today I am sure...