The Bendix from Jersey

[bygted]

I left at 4 AM on Sunday to drive the 3hrs up to Jersey to pick up the 56 Bendix combo.
It was in a small basement with a very small staircase that had a landing and then turned. It took 3 guys close to 3 hrs to extract it. It got stuck and wedged tight in the staircase several times.
It was NOT an enjoyable experience.
The basement was damp and a good deal of the bottom of the cabinet had turned to soil under the machine.
The internals still looked pretty decent and the only cosmetic part missing was the washer side knob faceplate.
Here is the machine in it's original habitat.

 

[bygted]

another original location shot

The porcelain should clean up pretty nice ...

 

[bygted]

Looking inside

John stopped by and we took the back off - some of the screws had to be ground off.
Right away, John noticed that all of the shipping braces - upper and lower were still bolted in place.

 

[bygted]

Little use ?

In addition to the braces still being there - there was no accumulated dust around the motors. There was however a great deal of BONES inside the machine that kept falling out as we dug around.

 

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Bone pile

yummm

 

[bygted]

the culprit

Perfectly mummified - he must have been a big fella!
His large nest - filled with more bones was made from newspaper dated 1971.

 

[bygted]

detergent chute

Also a possible sign of little use was the fact that the detergent chute had no accumulated detergent residue at all.

 

[bygted]

metal work

It's going to be a lot of work to get it looking like Jetcone's !
I am going to have to fabricate some support rails and weld some panels in to repair the missing sections on the bottom of the cabinet.
I am a novice welder - so I will have to make sure that I have a pro watching me while I do it so that I do it right.
I will post more pics as I tear into it.
Unless someone out there has an extra Bendix cabinet laying around ?

 

[revvinkevin]

Wow..... that is a pretty awesome find! I'm sorry to hear there was so much frustration getting it out of that basement, but over all it looks like it was well worth it! I look forward to seeing how it cleans up!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Kevin

 

[kenmoreguy64]

W O W !!!

I am speechless, or almost....

Do you think this machine may not have been used at all?

Funny thing about rodents, they seem to be able to get themselves into all sorts of places. I found a small critter's nest in between the outer tub and baseplate of my 1976 Green Beast that I restored last year.

Your little friend there must have made quite the malodorous-air while he was being mumified!

I hope that the machine in Charlotte is in better shape and less work for you Ted. We have very FEW basements here, and those we do have have one positive and one negative. On the bad, they are damp, but on the good, they are usually walk-outs (house on a hill).

Gordon

 

[mickeyd]

An Aworg original--the Mummy in the Machine

Pretty funny, Ted.

Maybe he licked off the detergent residue and made a nice mouth paste for his nest ;-D

This is way better than the morning funnies. Thanks for sharing.

 

[vacbear58]

If I am not mistaken

This is the same machine that is included in the videos section - one of my favourites (along with the 1950 Frigadaire)
Al

 

[bertrum]

I dont know whats more amazing, finding that Bendix or a forty year old mouse!

 

[turquoisedude]

Wow! It looks like the machine got moved to its orignal location then just left there! This is going to be awesome when you have it humming again. Hope no one got hurt during the move! Mice and other rodents are quite the thorn in the side as far as vintage machines go. I hope the critters who got into this one didn't like copper wiring as much as the little Texan rotters who lived in my GE Combo did!! Best of luck with this classic!!!

 

[goatfarmer]

That Bendix looks great! I'm thinking that's more of a rat, than a mouse....
I HATE those old basements. I pulled an early 50's GE fridge, and a similar vintage Universal 40" gas stove from a basement, with narrow stairs, and a turn halfway up. Took about 2 hrs, with 3 of us!

 

[customline]

you know what.......

This reminds of my '56 Hotpoint refrigerator experience. Took all of two hours to get that thing from the third floor of a town house to the truck that took it to it's new home.