POD 5/21/2017

[brucelucenta]

Frigidaire has always made innovations and this was quite a major one. To have a completely automatic washer/dryer in a 24" wide space and all one piece was something completely new for a new age. If you could manage to get the plumbing and electricity requirements, you could put in in any closet or small space. There were apartments with limited space who incorporated them into their buildings and boost their rental. It made it possible for many to have a washer/dryer of their own and not go to the laundromat. They made versions that used only 120 volts that took longer to dry, but still would work. They were unfortunately not a very durable machine though. The mechanism of the "agitub" had problems with the clutch wearing out and was not easy to replace and the interior of the dryer along with the lint filter housing was made out of bakelite and was easily broken by something getting tangled or caught on it or something heavy hitting it. But if you were careful and did not use it excessively or carelessly, they worked pretty well. If I am not mistaken, they came out at the same time the 1-18 machines came out in 1970. When WCI bought them out in 1979, they made a version of this with the Franklin/WCI transmission in the washer for many years. It seemed to hold up a little better under heavy use. At some point they changed the dryer interior and did not have the bakelite anymore either.

 

[gyrafoam]

What impressed me the most about the Syncro-Swing Mechanism and Agitub is how effective is is. Great roll-over. When combined with a good over-flow rinse it really cleaned well.
I always thought these were so novel. Amazing how many have survived. Mark and I rescued a number of them still NIB years ago while clearing out Fox's warehouse.
I wonder why W-W didn't keep the mechanism? I guess it was too expensive to manufacture.

 

[brucelucenta]

I always thought they did a good job of washing, rinsing and spinning out when the clutch was in good shape. One of the problems with these was that the clutch used to operate the washing had to release to spin when the motor reversed direction and the pads would wear out and it quit spinning well and wanted to agitate all the time. They were kind of complicated in design and not that easy to work on, since you only had access from the back until they finally made them accessible from the front at the end of Frigidaire's GM days. The dryer had the bakelite housing around the front of the drum including the filter housing and it was easily broken, then things would get in the exhaust and lint would build up. They should have made that out of something else. Unfortunately the 1-18 dryers had a similar problem. The plastic they used for the filter housing would warp and leave gaps where things could escape down the filter exhaust. They didn't correct that until the end of the GM ownership with a chrome metal strip at the top of the lint filter housing. They had a problem of lint build up too.

 

[philr]

It makes me want to get my GMini set out of storage!

 

[brucelucenta]

I had forgotten that Frigidaire made these as separate units too. As you see and hear from the video, they did wash your clothes quite well and they did spin out the water just barely enough before the rinse. I actually put in a slower timer motor on more than one which gave it a much longer cycle and more time to get rid of the water before the rinse and to spin the clothes drier in the final spin also. It has a built in level control to keep it from flooding, should something happen to keep it from pumping the water out, so it would fill and overflow slightly, triggering the level control and stop the flow of water until the wash cycle started. Same thing on the rinse cycle, so it worked quite well and made it wash, rinse and spin out a lot better than originally. They were kind of noisy by today's standards. I rather liked them and had managed to get my hands on one of the last in the series with the front that removes for servicing. Unfortunately, I was relieved of it, along with quite a few other machines, by a couple of creeps that were scrappers who went around stealing, if necessary, to pick up some money instead of working for a living like everyone else. It was inside a fenced, locked yard with no tresspassing signs and the fence was actually cut into to steal all that stuff. Sad....

 

[frigilux]

Wow, that really is a short first spin! What were the benefits of a one-piece tub/agitator?

 

[brucelucenta]

I don't really know what benefits a one piece agitub would have other than not needing an actual transmission like most other machines had. At this point in time, Frigidaire had managed to have mechanisms without an actual transmission on both the Mini and the 1-18 machines. I will say that working on them was usually a much cleaner job than many machines of the time.