VERY very cool Nate...
I am sooooo glad to see someone else but me is happy with a black panel machine!! Waaahooie!
Ok, here's what has crossed my mind in reading this (I actually waited as I saw the first few pics and wanted to respond instant pronto but wanted to wait for you to get all your pics up).
First, this is indeed a '78 model. The model numbers gained a digit in between the decade and year digits in 1974 to describe a few characteristics of the machine. 1 = 24-inch, 2 = 29-inch, 3 = 29 suds model, 4 = portable, and 5 = 24-inch suds. So, 110.728 is a 1978 29-inch model. The 801 means this is a white first level 80 series, and the 10 says the machine is a second edition (something was revised somewhere) with the first edition being 00.
On the water level knob - these are soft plastic, and yeah, you could probably cut it off with bolt cutters or something big like that midway into the finger indentations before the switch shaft, at least enough to get the pressure switch out of the console. I have had this happen to me too. I think it's why later pressure switches in the early 80s went to a plastic shaft that won't rust. If the pressure switch works, I'd leave well enough alone (though it would bother me until I got it off I have a feeling though). New replacements are out there, but when the console styling was revised in 1981 and the knobs gained the little hockey stick addition to the pointer, the older knobs were discontinued in favor of these very similar ones. I have ten billion of these if you want one. Well, I have close to that many....
The timer is up there as one of the most widely used timers in all of washer-land. This one, the Lady K's of the era timer with the second rinse, and the lower level without the soak were three timers in production and use for over 10 years and were in countless millions of machines. There are a few on ebay right now, some new, some not. I've bought them for as little as 12 bucks. The part nubmer is 376008 if you want a CCA/Singer timer, or 376011 if you want Mallory. I don't like Mallory timers myself, they get a lot of dead spots seemingly sooner than CCA, and they sound like tin cans. The universal replacement is 378133, which is a CCA design, and still available from WP believe it or not. This timer requires a jumper wire to be spliced in to the harness to get spray rinses. I don't know if Midwest would rebuild your timer, but they certainly have done many of these in the past. You may want to open it up and clean the contacts. One of them sounds stuck together - the one for the timer motor?
Getting the pointer section off may be a challenge, but it will eventually pop. Put your fingers under the pointer evenly around the dial, place your knuckles on the console and your thumbs on the timer shaft. I have made dents in my finger tips doing this, but it should eventually work. Be careful not to rub the gold paint off - it IS possible.
One the console top - I have a SURPRISE solution...see if you can find some medium brown 3M woodgrain contact paper. I used an entire roll of that recovering bunches of these. It covers scratches, sun fading, stains, whatever and makes them PERFECT. The top has to be pristine clean or the contact paper will outline the dirt. Take off the end caps so you can get to the ends of the panel, and it will look like new. I used to LOVE doing that, and the color would be a near dead match to an un-repaired dryer console of the same design.
I have never polished the black - I am interested to see what you get with that. Don't use a polish with a lot of cleaners as the black paint itself and the white and gold on top of it can come off.
If you want to bail on this entire console, LOTS of places used to have a stache of these hanging around. Some of surely tossed them by now, I know others still have them sitting around. Get one with the right number of pins in the wiring harness block that mates at the corner of the top and you can put any console on there you want (just be sure a standard capacity pressure switch isn't in the new console or you may have some unexpected results). You could also harvest a replacement timer this way - just be sure it has a pre-soak and no big gap between Normal and Perm. Those with the gap were early 76/77 models but were capable of a second rinse but were unwired in models with the giant OFF.
That's probably enough for now? Let me know how I can help!
Gordon
