Timer repair for Kevin's Apex washer

[d-jones]

Most of you will recall that Kevin recently picked up a very rare vintage Apex washer, one of only two known to club members. After years of neglect it needs a lot of tlc to get it going again. So after the initial clean up, since very little happens on a vintage machine without a functioning timer, Kevin decided to start there. From the outset, after years of sitting in a barn the timer was stuck solid. No movement was possible in either direction when the control knob was turned. Well, since I was to blame for letting him know about this washer in the first place, I figured I should offer to help sort out some of its problems. So back in November(I can’t believe it’s been that long) Kevin brought me the entire control panel with the timer attached so I could play with it.

[this post was last edited: 1/31/2013-15:39]

 

[d-jones]

The first thing to do was pull the two big red gears off so I could get to the two screws that mount the timer to the control panel.

 

[d-jones]

With the timer separated from the control panel and the two side plates removed from the timer body, it became obvious that the problem had nothing to do with the timers various cams. Apart from the dead spiders and a little debris, things looked very normal in here.

 

[d-jones]

Since there wasn’t anything wrong with the cam assembly, the next step was to pull the timer motor/escapement assembly off of the cam housing. The silver colored Philips screw is one of three that needed to be removed for that.

 

[d-jones]

With the removal of the two pressed steel nuts that hold the retainer in place, the timer motor is ready to come off.

 

[d-jones]

With the removal of three more pressed steel nuts, the top plate was free to be removed from the escapement. If you ever have to do this, do it slowly and get a good look at where things go as you’re taking it apart. Once the top cover is lifted off, things are pretty well free to move around in there, and they will. The more carefully you observe things at this point, the easier reassembly will be. As you can see, there isn’t much to see here other than a bit of coagulated grease, so I began to clean up the various little components figuring that when I got to the problem child it’d be obvious.

 

[d-jones]

More of the same.

 

[d-jones]

Here’s the trouble maker. This complicated little assembly of gears and springs allows the timer to drive the gear one way, while turning the control knob the other way will cause the small center gear to push the spring loaded pawls out of the way and slip past. This allows you to turn the cam assembly to the desired position without driving the escapement. These little pawls were being held firmly in place by old dried out lube that had literally glued them down. It took some effort, but they were freed up and new lube was applied.

 

[d-jones]

Here the timer motor/escapement is reassembled and mounted to the cam assembly, minus the escapements protective covering so I could watch it all work. Unfortunately, when I connected it to power it just sat there. Nothing happened at all. Damn! Now what?

 

[d-jones]

A quick check of the two timer motor terminals with an ohm meter revealed an open, so the darn motor was bad. I looked around a bit for a new motor, but for some reason vintage Ingraham clock motors from the early fifties are kind of hard to find,(imagine that) and when you do find them, the folks that have them are so proud of them that they wont let them go for less than one hundred and fifty dollars. Holly @#%&* batman! What do I do now?

Well, I though about it for a while and tried to conjure up a way around this problem. I had another timer motor that looked like it might work, but it would require some modification of the escapement to get it mounted properly, and then I had an added problem in that I had no idea what the correct rpm should be. The stampings on the Ingraham motor made no mention of rpm. So if the new motor speed didn’t match the old one, Kevin’s Apex might end up running faster or slower than it was intended to. Rather than risk screwing things up I made the only choice I could. I’d just have to repair the original motor. With that in mind I began to disassemble it. This little nut is all that holds the cover plate on.
[this post was last edited: 1/31/2013-13:15]

 

[d-jones]

With the cover plate removed you can see the motor assembly sitting in the housing. To get it out of there so you can work on it, the plastic covered power lead adapter needs to be removed as shown. You can see it sitting beside the motor. Now the only thing holding the motor in place is gravity.

 

[d-jones]

With the inner motor housing removed from the outer housing you finally get a good look at it. The top cover that holds the reduction gears is staked in place, so those stakes will need to be driven back to get the top plate off. This photo was taken during reassembly, but you get the idea.

[this post was last edited: 1/31/2013-14:13]

 

[d-jones]

With the coil removed I began to unroll the wire onto a cardboard tube, thinking if I got lucky and found the break quickly, I could solder it back together and reassemble it.

[this post was last edited: 1/31/2013-14:30]

 

[d-jones]

WRONG!...........As I unrolled the wire I found break, after break, after break. It quickly got ridicules. Each piece of blue tape represents another break, so I gave up and ripped all the wire off the spool. [this post was last edited: 1/31/2013-13:07]

 

[d-jones]

I was going to have to start over with new wire. But since I needed to know how much new wire to roll onto the spool, all of the old wire was carefully collected and weighed, along with the empty spool. The scale used was more than up to the job, and sensitive enough that when an overlooked piece of wire several inches long was found on the table and placed in the tray, the scale had to be readjusted for the extra weight.

 

[d-jones]

Using a micrometer, the thickness of the old and new wire was measured. Once it was clear that I had the correct new wire for the job, the process of rolling it onto the spool began.

 

[d-jones]

This is what the setup looked like. The battery for the drill motor needed recharging so this picture was taken while I waited for it to finish. Since the wire was thin enough that it was hard to see, the magnifying glass made it possible to monitor the progress. The wire was guided onto the spool by gripping it loosely between my thumb and index finger.

 

[d-jones]

Here’s the freshly wrapped spool ready for installation in the little motor housing.

 

[d-jones]

Nearly complete. The stakes that hold the motor housing top plate in place have been reapplied, and all of the remaining parts to the assembly have been laid out to make sure I haven’t misplaced anything. Now would be a good time to apply power to the motor and see that it works.

 

[d-jones]

Well, look at that. It works. Note the blurred edge of the gear in the foreground. That’s because it’s moving too fast for the camera. Now all that remains is final assembly. I'll get to that later today.

 

[jetcone]

DAVID!

That is FANTASTIC WORK! Now we can save all our timer motors. Amazing you found so many breaks in a spool locked inside a can never designed to be moved or touched! It has to be just plain age on the wire!

Now the cam with spring gear that you freed up, did it unwind when you took apart the escapement? If so it has to be clocked back a notch to put tension back on the spring otherwise the escapement won't work right.

jon

 

[chestermikeuk]

Wow

Thats what I love about this place, what a feat of traditional workmanship, great to see how it all came back to life , you must have the patience of a saint Ha ha..

Looking forward to seeing it all back together and working!!

 

[redcarpetdrew]

Right on!

This is awesome! I didn't even know it was possible, thanks for the inside view of surgery on par with brain surgery only with power tools. You might have more business after sharing this... LOL!

RCD

 

[Ultramatic]

Wow!

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">David, <span style="text-decoration: underline;">thank you</span> so much for showing us your step by step process on resurrecting a timer motor! I enjoyed it immensely. I'm looking forward to seeing more!</span>

 

<span style="font-size: medium;">Louie</span>

 

[recyclewasher]

Now THAT"s just F*@#ing AMAZING! restoration..

Before you wrap it up ...PLEASE, PLEASE include where you got the

1. gram?? scale. and

2. who your wire supplier was as you couldn't have had that in storage before you began..

3. and OH, what model battery nut driver are you using?

WOW!! now I can use the techinique on some old wall clocks that I have...
Thanks for posting!

 

[d-jones]

Jon

I wondered about all those breaks myself. It's a real head scratcher. All I can say for certain is that it didn't break while I was unrolling it. The broken ends would just slip off the spool without even the slightest hint of a tug. While trying to find a way around the dead timer motor problem, I managed to find a local outfit that had a timer assembly that used the very same motor. They wanted eighty dollars for it, but before I would even consider it I asked them to put a meter on the motor leads and see if it was good. It wasn't. Somehow, while just sitting in its box on the parts shelf for the last few decades it developed an open. So I guess this is more common than I would have thought.

As far as the escapement goes, that little spring you mentioned definitely unwound when I opened it up. Fortunately, it made enough noise when it let loose that I knew something important had just happened, so I went looking for the cause. It wasn't too hard to find, or correct for that matter. The escapement is reassembled at this point, and even though the motor wasn't working, I was able to drive the input gears with a very small flat tip screw driver and confirm that everything is working as it should. They really are clever little devices, and they're kind of fun to watch.

 

[kb0nes]

Bravo!!

Excellent documentation of a great repair! Amazing what can be done with a little patience and ingenuity.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[norgeway]

Scale..

That scale is very similar to what my Dad used loading rifle shells.The powder must be weighed exactly!

 

[christfr]

dude your awesome

 

[d-jones]

David (recyclewasher)

The scale used here is intended for reloading ammunition, so it's calibrated in grains. But any sensitive and accurate scale would work fine. In this case, the weight of the old wire and the empty spool was 576.6 grains, and the weight of the spool loaded with new wire was 576.7 grains. Close enough.

 

As for the wire, believe it or not, my dad had that big spool of wire sitting on a shelf in his bedroom.(that's just how he is) He retired from the Department of Water and Power here in Los Angeles, and the DWP does almost all of their own maintenance, including rewinding electrical solenoids and motor windings. They have machines that turn the spools that the wire is being fed onto, and since they can't have the wire run out before the spool is fully loaded, once the spools that are supplying the new wire get below a certain point, they're  set aside for scrap or small projects. My dad bought one and brought it home years ago. I just got lucky in that it turned out to be the exact same wire that I needed for this little job. The label on the end of the spool identifies it as number 39 wire, which should be .0035 inches in diameter, but the wire actually measured out to .0041 inches. I'm going to guess that the difference is the thickness of the varnish applied to the wire.

 

The nut drivers belonged to my grandfather who was a TV and radio repairman in the fifties and sixties. They came in a small set and were made by Xcelite. They've been very handy over the years. Do you by any chance have the same set?