RCA Whirlpool, not CA, this time I checked my typign

[akronman]

Water and oil leaks

This Whirlpool is a great and fun washer, but there's a slight water leak from between the exterior tub and the big base plate, near the filter outlet hose but not from it, damn it. IT's minor, but will need repair.
Worse, see pic, tranny leak. The pic shows the small leak from about 6 loads where the washer is now, and then a larger stain to the left in this pic and on top of that balancing/leveling board, from where it sat for first 15 loads or so. I know it's more than is supposed to be occuring, so I'm looking at a pretty decent job ahead of me. And the leaking fluid is near black, it's time for a rebuild.

I feel it's well worth it on this classic old girl, and I've never yet failed mechanically/automotive/electric/plumbing, so I'll retire the machine for a few weeks and then start tearing into it.

I have an early 70's Whirlpool Kenmore repair guide, it even details this machine's 3-solenoid water valve and the pushbutton timer set-up, but most likely the best help will come from this here AW website. This model may be rare, but WP/KM is common as dirt, thank God, so I'm betting any/all seals/washers/tranny parts are still easily available.

 

[mixfinder]

Delayed Gratification

Even though you have the expertise and support to tear the machine apart there is a small catch in your throat when something that looked so easy is going to require calling in favors, looking for elusive parts and trying to get the grease out of your cuticles before dinner.  Let's hope its a seamless textbook repair and you are surgilating your wigwax in record time.

 

[akronman]

Whirlpool Tranny leak

Mixfinder----oh it will be a mess for sure, my boyfriend will gripe, but he'll also help with the paint job and detailing, that's his expertise. And he already advised me on how to paint those raised lettering and symbols on the console glass, once everything else is done. Despite thinking I'm a fool, he is impressed that my name MARK is right there in the glass.

The tranny leak seems to come entirely from the uppermost seal on the mian drive pulley shaft, right under the main pulley, then drips down all over the place.

2 offbeat questions---What program do some of you folks use to mark up jpegs in here?
Also, sometimes you embed a short video right inside these threads, instead of a link to YouTube. How do you do that?

Spray rinse-----When I was working on the water valve, I noticed that 2/3 of the spray goes into the outer tub, giving pretty poor results for the spray rinse.

 

[akronman]

fixed it

So I cut a small piece from a lid from a Glad food storage lid and screwed it down under the airgap/inlet hose.
Now all water goes into ineer tub, everything during spray rinse hits the clothes, not the outer tub

 

[akronman]

last one

here it is, works for me, helps the rinsing.

After a total of about 2 dozen loads of clothes, I'm impressed with turnover and rinsing and overall abilities of this small tub old machine. Early on, I adjusted the water level to within an inch of the tub lid flange, I'm getting great turnover on even a few overloaded batches. The bleach dispenser works, the fabric softener too, but then of course it sprays most of that out with the final spin-rinse.

The "cool-down" cycles are sort of dumb compared to my 70's Maytag and GE. On this machine, there's no additional agitation as the cool water comes in. First---Half drain, then refill, then immediate half drain again, refill, I think it goes 3 times, then finally does some agitation. On the other hand, I really couldn't care less about cooldown cycles, I think they are a waste of water and time personally. But on the GE, there's agitation after the partial fills, so I sometimes use that cycle as an extra deluxe super rinse feature. This Whirlpool does have an extra rinse, 11th button, comes in handy.
Anyhows, great agitation, rock solid performance on spin and spray rinse and I love the looks and the pushbuttons, so this will be my first major repair job, it's time to learn and this one is worth it. Minor interior rust, I've seen and fixed LOTS worse.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Mark -

That's an ingenious method to divert spray water into the basket!!! I love it!!! It has always bugged me that much of the spray doesn't hit the clothes. I concluded however that since WP never changed this, it must accomplish something. The spray soaks the side of the basket, and it helps in lint and suds removal, and helps flush suds out of the outer tub when a suds lock is in progress. With today's low sudsing detergents, all that is probably not important.

Regarding the oil leak - it looks like the oil in your machine is becoming (or did a long time ago) contaminated. MANY belt drives, if not all of them, will drip a little bit of transmission oil with use. As a kid, I always expected to clean this up with our machines whenever we moved them. That said, the oil is normally golden yellow in color. When it gets cola brown or worse, it usually means that water is mixing with the oil and causing parts inside to rust and contaminate the oil. They don't leak at the volume you're seeing however.

I used to think that a flooded transmission wasn't possible in the old centerpost machines where the centerpost itself is nearly as tall as the full-basket water line. But, I know now that it is possible, it just takes longer to happen as seals degrade in the centerpost that trap air under the agitator instead of water at a low point in the centerpost.

Newer machines with short centerposts can have this same transmission flooding occur, but much sooner in their lives than their older counterparts did. In your machine's case, I would think the seals are very dried, and probably not very effective. Raising the water level will worsen this problem a lot. If your seals are bad and are not trapping any air under the agitator, then a super-high water level will present water right to the bearing and agitator shaft. The eventual result is a flooded transmission.

Most of the time I have found oil to come out of the transmission at the agitator shaft, not the drive pulley shaft, but I can see how this could happen if it's worn.

Some here will say that a flooded transmission is probably not usable again in a rebuilt condition, but I have one that was ugly with oil & water in 1995 that I cleaned and rebuilt. I have added at least 1,000 loads to it's "clock" since then with only normal operation from it. If you take apart your gearcase, drain off the old bilge oil, put the parts through a parts washer flush, and re-assemble it all with the right oil and a new cover seal, you'll be fine, especially with the limited use we AW.orgers tend to put on vintage machines.

Good luck with that, let us know if you need any help.

Gordon

 

[washerlover]

Yeah, I agree with the Whirlpool "cool down" cycle...my '66 washer just fills, then drains, no agitation -- like watching paint dry. I like my '64 Kenmore; at least it agitates during the partial fill/drain cycle.

 

[appnut]

agitate during partial fill/cool-down

To the best of my knoowledge, that was a feature exclusive to the Kenmore brand.  Initially, even Kenmores didn't do that.  They just refilled and drained several times and the 1959 or 1960 model 70 my best friend in high school's mom had, I don't think it agitated at all.  When I moved into the dorm my freshman year in fall 1973, the laundry room on my floor had the typical Maytag avocado greene machines with the 6 cycle selector knob.  It's cooldown was I think one fill and did not agitate, just went right into spin.  Didn't move the warm water around from the side where it had filled.