Signature washer took its moniker way too seriously

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rp2813

rp2813

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This post is dedicated to Nate, who has heard the legend but never seen the proof. 

 

Beneath my Affinity lies the indelible reminder of a distant predecessor, a machine that over the course of seven+ years before falling victim to its own scheme, defaced this inconspicuous area of laundry room flooring by, shall we say, putting its own spin on "Kilroy was here." 

 

Behold the mark of The Beast, forever (or until a major remodel, whichever comes first) etched in stone, the '67 Signature's actual signature, fashioned by a drive pulley presumably in a failed attempt to tunnel out and terrorize legions of unsuspecting homemakers as part of a grand scheme to line the pockets of repairmen and/or send exasperated and traumatized home mechanics running for the nearest padded room. 

 

I continue to maintain that The Beast was not acting alone.  Those who dream of owning such a machine, consider yourselves warned, and if you haven't ever seen it, I suggest you rent "Christine" before making a decision you may well live to regret.

rp2813++1-31-2012-02-47-34.jpg
 
SIGNATURE-NORGE WASHERS

We used to see such failures regularly with these, sometimes it was the bearing in the drive pulley or the base plate itself is cracking that caused this. This was always one of the fun things about going out on Norge built laundry appliance service calls as you often saw new and startling failures. These washers were never really durable machines and they were among the least worth repairing when it came to major drive-line repairs. The Norge built dryers were another story until they went to the two belt machines around 1967 and then they came up with a dryer that made their washers look good in terms of reliability, but they both flocked your basement with lint LOL.
 
It's a shame Maytag knew nothing of this when they bought the line to market Norgetags as their large capacity machines, a move that made as much sense for their reliability claims as keeping a termite colony in your wooden boat or moths in your suit closet.

Speaking of Christine, did any part of this machine's console light up when she went into her murderous, domstic destruction phase, the way the radio lit up when Christine was having a temper tantrum?

Speaking of murderous automobiles, in the early 1970s, an organization whose name escapes me attempted to reintroduce radio plays. These could be heard in Atlanta on WGST, late in the evening when the station was still affiliated with Georgia Tech. One play dealt with an engineer who had determined that the machines were plotting to take over the world. He shared this with a coworker. He was more and more worried about this as he discovered more evidence. One day as he left work, his car took control away from him and rapidly accelerated, eventually crashing itself to kill the engineer who knew too much as the friend in whom he had confided his worst fears looked on from the parking lot.
 
Thank you, Mark, for remembering the name. They produced some good stuff. Driving alone through the night on almost deserted roads made a good setting for listening to those tales. It's no wonder that one of the original radio suspense programs had the title, "Lights Out!"
 
COOL!

Yay!  Thanks for photographing that, Ralph!  I had long wondered about what that looked like, after you'd mentioned it.

 

I had friends who had a Norge top-loader, and had it set-up outside on their back porch.  After a quick renovation and some transplanted plumbing connections, they moved their machines inside (which was a good move).  However, I bit my hand as she showed me the new configuration--they had relocated the washer and dryer indoors, into a room with plush, beige carpeting, and had the Norge adjusted all the way down on its leveling feet.

 

I would have LOVED to have seen that carpeting after peeking under the washer...
 
Whenever I see that car, I am reminded of my clean-freak uncle's pristine Christine, a salmon '57 that he unloaded in 1962.

 

Tom, only the matching gas dryer had any semblance of console lighting.  A rectangular lens at bottom center.  That dryer outlasted The Beast by about 15 years, but it provided its own version of torment by creating annoying static in the TV reception whenever the flame was lit.  Toward the end it tried to gas everyone.  It smelled like a bus was idling in the laundry room.

 

Guess what my parents replaced it with.  Another Norge.  They were true Wards die-hards.  This one was from the model line that had the weird plastic button on the lower front panel.  It was tinny and cheap looking, but I have to admit that it never had a problem and was operating flawlessly when it got booted out of here by the Affinity a little over three years ago.

 

Just to clarify, back in 1975 I put my foot down and insisted that my mom Just Say NO to Norge.  The Beast was replaced by a Kenmore 800 with Quiet Pack and Penta Swirl, which brought peace and quiet to the adjacent den and reigned supreme in the laundry room for the next 25+ years, needing only one belt (because the original one was the green type) and a pump, repairs both made by yours truly.  Nate's Penta Swirl thread and associated video clips have made me nostalgic for that machine.
 

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