Taming a Rollermatic - Custom Deluxe style!

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Another magazine article~

All of that immense technical skill, the photo-video extravaganza, and then the writing. How DO you do it ?!

Was lucky enough to have spent my teenage years with the bronze version, and could not get enough of it.

But, Ben, I have to ask you a serious question: You are the ultimate purist, perfectionist, so why have you skipped the jetcone three stage rocket agitator?
 
"You are the ultimate purist, perfectionist, so why have you skipped the jetcone three stage rocket agitator?"

Probably a combination of noise and destruction plus extra capacity. I firmly stand by his decision on this one.
 
Fantastic Thread Ben !

Love being able to see all the steps in one place!  I did not know you did so much work in the bearings, amazing ! 

 

Mikeyd - maybe I can answer  your question, I learned this long ago, and mentioned it to Ben, the three ring agitator pulls the clothes down harder and is quiet, the Jet   Cone, is loud but it does have a dead spot above the top cone where clothes can just get stuck and not pulled under . 
 
Another fantastic restoration Ben

This was a really neat era for Frigidaire washers. We have two of them in our museum collection although both of the roller-matic are the rapid dry models, actually I have 3 one needs to be repaired yet.

The older three ring agitator provides much faster turnover, and also works better with small loads compared to the later jet cone agitator, however, the advantage of the Jet cone agitator was much less tangling so it’s a trade-off.

What’s your next restoration? Ben? Can’t wait.

John L
 
Truly amazing - I have literally no mechanical aptitude, so while a lot of the detail was confusing, I well understand the difficulty, skill and patience you must have to complete this labor of love. And the results are truly so worth it. Congratulations on another excellent restoration!!!
 
WOW! You are incredibly talented and ambitious. It must be good genetics and the fact that you have the patience for tackling such an complex job.
 
Dear Mother General Jon Charles Jetcone~

A big warm hello and Thank You for the insight. I bet you're right; furthermore, that is one truly beautiful agitator--love the higher head.

The action of the three ring pulsator in a 12 pound tub differs from that of a 10 pounder: In the classic 10, everything goes round and down at once while in the 12, some articles sort of "wait their turn" to take the plunge, just like in the 1-18 and the rollermatics. I'm sure you've noticed.

Myself, well, I spent way too many hours watching our rollermatic's jetcone peel the articles off the load and pull them down when I should have been out playing SPOOORRTS. Ha ha ha.
 
Thank you!

Oh guys, thank you for your kind comments and responses. I wish I could say there was a natural talent that goes along with diving into a project like this, but I truly believe that everyone is capable of learning how to work on our mechanical wonders. They really are the best place to start in terms of building up mechanical knowledge and touch, IMO. I've always felt that coding or electronics/microelectronics are far more difficult to master than turning a wrench and reading through a service manual. Anyone can do this if they put their mind to it and are okay making mistakes and learning along the way. :)

Ok - a few answers to some of the questions:

Mickeyd - Jon and Dan are spot on. The cleaning ability of the narrower 1963/1964 three ring agitator column seems to be better than the 1965-1969 Deep Action/Jet Action agitator. The side by side shot above of the two shows how the narrow center of the earlier style will swallow items into the circulation, vs. the later style relies on zones of current on the periphery of the tub to turn items over. I'm also proving that the later, narrower pulsators work just fine to turn over big loads, and even slow things down just a bit compared to the earlier 1955-1964 pulsators. And yes, Dan is correct. The earlier agitator is MUCH quieter.

As for writing. I cringe when I read back through my posts. At typos and grammar issues. I often have a great narrative in my mind of what I want to say but I don't have a lot of time to get it down on paper, let alone having time to go back and read through my thoughts with the lens of a proof reader/editor. Throw in shooting video footage on my phone, editing it over the course of an evening, and trying to be a husband/dad with a full time job. It's a wonder any of this actually gets accomplished.

Patrick/Agiflow - I really need to shoot a full cycle video of the 350 Blackstone. Coming soon!

John L - While I do love a good Rapid Dry Rollermatic, I really warmed up to to the idea of saving/restoring a middle of the line machine, especially an early one. Considering how unique the design and engineering is of these, restoring the bread and butter version felt just as important as having the fastest car/spinning washer off the show room floor.

And - to follow up on a few things I mentioned during the thread. I did measure the agitate wheel spacer gage for both the Rollermatic and the 1-18:

Agitate Wheel spacer gage 12934-1 - Rollermatic - 0.125 / 1/8"
Agitate Wheel spacer gage 14405 - 1-18 Rollermatic - 0.060 / ~1/16"

Also, the piece of steel bar stock that I used to help press out the agitate wheel bearing was 1/8" x 1", cut to about 5 inches in length.

Otherwise, the only specialized tools that are an absolute must would be the bellows pliers and the tub nut wrench. Outside of those, all other tasks technically can be done without any other specialized tools, baring that a shop press makes bearing removal and assembly so much easier, as well as a gear puller for the drivers and motor upper bearing. [this post was last edited: 2/21/2025-16:14]

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Agitate Arm adjustment

Okay, this is good tip for anyone to check when working on a '64 thru '69 Rollermatic. None of the original Tech Talk service manuals for these washers discuss rebuilding the agitate arm as GM did not supply the repair kit for these until the mid 70's. The instruction sheet that comes along with either the 9957111 Rollermatic or 9957112 1-18 rebuild kit contain the same instructions.

The important part to note is the torque "drop test", discussed in bullet number 14 below; screen shot taken from the 1972 Tech Talk for the T-Line washers. After cleaning everything and lubricating the wick, I adjusted the nut to what I felt was pretty close, then did the 45 degree drop to center and adjusted the nut until I could reliably get the same result after a few tries.

All of the used arms I had on hand were terribly loose. This adjustment in itself would help quiet down a noisy Rollermatic, and would ensure that the ball bushings have a nice long healthy life.

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So many rollers, oh my!

Another mystifying thing I wanted to help shed some light on are the many, many, many different part numbers GM used from 1964 thru 1979 on all Rollermatic mechanisms.

The late '64 through early '66 mechanisms used what I like to call the spring style rollers, that have a wire wound spring that wraps around the center bushing and has tension held by a near by stand off on the motor frame. It didn't take long for GM to update the newer "retractor" style rollers on the 1 and 2 speed mechanisms, starting with the mid-year introduction in 1966 of the Sure Spin clutch, and on the '67 L through '68 N line Rapid Dry mechanisms.

As I read through the various Tech Talks, Tech Tips, and the annual Tech Tip digest that GM called the Tech Talk Miscellaneous, I got a sense of information of the updates and revisions that GM was working to achieve during the early years. There were some repair kits available for some years, red stripes vs. yellow stripes on spin rollers, Impact Clutch vs. Sure Spin, and then all of the 1-18 changes that happened over the course of a decade.

For the last several years I've slowly been working on a cross reference table that I was originally inspired by Greg N and some of the research he had done, as well as some of the tabulated summary information GM was trying to present in Tech Tips. This table focuses mostly on rollers/clutches/agitate arms, but it does include a few other small details.

As for the restoration on the '65, I used a 6597633 agitate/spin roller kit, that provides a 7533507 agitate roller and 7533505/0631407 spin roller, and one roller screw. Since I ended up using a motor base from a '66 sure spin I didn't need to modify the motor base, but all 1964 and early '65 mechanisms will require a hole to be drilled into the bae in order for the roller tab to fall into the notch/hole on the motor base frame.

If anyone spots any errors on this list, please let me know and I'd be happy to make any updates/corrections.

Happy parts hunting!

Ben



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