The Franken-Scrubber

[macboy91si]

It's finally time to finish a project that thanks to John Lefever, I have the parts to complete. I will be converting my 1985 Hotpoint set to a full GE Spot Scrubber set.

A little back history, last year, I bought (and paid too much for) a matched GE Spotscrubber washer and dryer in almond. As excited as I was, one I got home, it was a different story. The lip that the boot attaches to on the washer had rusted allowing water to leak. Upon closer inspection, I realized that the machine's inner and outer tubs were badly rusted and the ballast ring had been contaminated. I put the set in storage until I could figure out something to do with them.

Meanwhile back at the house, the clutch in the Hotpoint is getting louder and louder in the wash cycle and taking longer and longer to get up to speed in spin. Gentle is no longer possible. So then comes the idea. With the help of John Lefever, I was able to obtain the proper SS minibasket and accessories to make this work.

I have decided to transfer the "guts" of the SS set into the Hotpoint cabinets and I have finally started this and decided to photograph it along the way. I'm going to start with the washer and do the dryer next.

-Tim

 

[macboy91si]

The Ugly Guts

Hard to tell in this pic, but the rust comes up and slaps you in the face. The Agitator is stuck and I am not near a hot water source to free it. It's a nice agitator, but it may have to stay with the hull.

 

[macboy91si]

Not Too Hard

Basically I grabbed the lid assembly from the SS including the complete wiring harness with pics of how it goes together. The clutch was good in this machine so I grabbed the motor/clutch/relay as well from the SS machine.

Here is the motor relay and the SS solenoid before I undid the wires.

 

[macboy91si]

The Motor/Clutch/Pump

I kept the pump as well and all of the hoses that would come off. There isn't anything wrong with my pump, but it's good to have an extra just in case. The motor assembly was in good shape.

 

[macboy91si]

More Later

I will take some pics of the other parts as they go into the machine including control panel and wiring things that I run into. From what I see, this should not be too difficult, but we'll see. I think it will be a neat project nonetheless.

-Tim

 

[whirlpolf]

aaaarggghh!

What a beauty! This is exactly THE machine that I've always wanted to have!
Please tell us more about its resurrection, post pics of that minibasket and please don't forget the videos.
Unfortunately the US Forces would only ship BOL models in 220V over here, so your guys must have had to put up with less than what is shown here (or they owned a transformer).
Which results in the fact that noone here can have one of THOSE spotscrubbers in 220 volts. What a shame!
Has anyone got this or a later "Profile" style GE (brushed aluminum) with spotscrubber and minibasket in 220? I could only manage to get a BOL single-speed GE Filter Flo, but that was about it.
What a beauty!
Keep us posted, please!

 

[macboy91si]

The Recipient Is Ready For Operation

Back panel off and ready to go, this should be a fun night indeed! My trusty 100 year old galvanized bucket ready for spills.

 

[macboy91si]

The Pump

This is the 1st time I've done anything "major" to a Filter-Flo like this. There may be discrepencies on the order I did this in, but it worked. I started with the pump, unhooking the recirculating filter hose from the original. I kept the original pump in the machine, the SS washer has a soft, collapsible hose that goes to the filter flume that has to be changed. I also noticed that the pumps were slightly different. The Hotpoint has a serviceable pump that comes apart and the SS machine has a sealed 1-piece that did not appear to be serviceable.

 

[macboy91si]

The Motors

I removed the pump coupling and tilted the machine forward to undo the motor. The motor sits closer to the ground than I thought it did and was stuffed with dust and cat hair (!!!). The new motor looked a little rougher, but the clutch is much smoother. A new one would still be nice, but this one is much nicer. This was much easier to do than I thought it would be.

The one on the left is the replacement and the one of the right is the original.

 

[macboy91si]

What Makes a Spotscrubber...

...a Spotscrubber?

This solenoid. The super-soft recirculation hose gets pinched by an electric solenoid (a massive one at that). The main cycle timer sends power to the solenoid during the entire wash portion of the Spotscrubber cycle. Since this feature uses the mini-basket, the only way to fill that is with the recirculation system. Problem is, with this solenoid activated, no water passes through. That's where a secondary timer comes into play. The Spotscrubber knob on the control panel is actually a 1 minute separate time that kills power to the SS solenoid in order to fill it. It doesn't fill up all the way, only about half. If you want to add more water, you can simply reset the SS timer. It's a simple and very neat system. It's sort of similar in principle to the Kelvinator's "Magic-Minute" where it uses a very concentrated suds solution in a low amount of water to scrub the clothes.

 

[macboy91si]

The Contol Panels

This was the part I was worried about, but after taking the SS machine apart, it wasn't that bad. I left the top on the Hotpoint machine and it was my intent to leave it on, but I ended up changing out the splash guard from the GE as well and I found it easier to remove the top. The wires feed down the holes and there are only 4 philips screws that hold the panel on. Once off it was actually a breeze to get everything sorted. One thing I can say here, remove the water level sender hose from the switch not the tub fitting. It seemed to be glued on to both tub fittings, but it comes off of the switch easily. I assume it's to keep from coming off with all of the vibrations.

 

[macboy91si]

Alnost There

Here it is after the new contol panel is attached. This is one of my favorite parts of any project, when things start coming to life and the idea is no longer just in your imagination.

 

[randomguy]

That looks just like the '90 or '91 (I think) Filter Flo we had,except for a couple of things. Ours didn't have the Spotscrubber feature, and where that washer has the Spotscrubber cycle, ours had a Regular cycle with extra rinse. It was a good washer, up until the tranny failed a couple of years ago and we replaced it with a Speed Queen.