Turquoisedude joins 'Club 1140'

[turquoisedude]

In the past year, there has been a surge in acquisition of a particular brand in my collection (no doubt Phil's influence is at play here...) and as of yesterday evening, Frigidaire has taken the number 2 rank away from Westinghouse.

 

However, since actually seeing a few in action when visiting other members, I had my sights set on a Unimatic machine.   I know they're harder and harder to find, but I knew some day I would get one.  It was probably inevitable.  At least that's what I've been telling Hubby... LOL 

 

Well, thanks to Ben in Iowa, I am the proud owner of a 1951 WO-65 Frigidaire washer AND it's matched TR-60 Filtrator dryer (something else I had been pining for).

 

However, as with all acquisitions, there's the riddle of how to get them from point 'A' to Ogden...  Jackie Demperre helped solve that one and brought the machines from Waterloo right to Derby, VT.  All I had to do was pick them up.  HA!!  

 

After much debate, I finally realized that it would be safer to take both the Ford wagon AND the Suzuki hatchback to ensure that both machines came home with me.   File this under 'well, wouldn't you know it': the darned Suzuki gave up the ghost trying to climb Miller's Hill on the way to the border.  Hubby was driving and managed to safely get the car back down the hill.  But I still had to meet Jackie... 

 

I pushed on with just the Ford wagon and hoped the specs for the appliances I had seen were accurate...

 

And now, the answer to the question:  How many Frigidaires can one fit in a 2007 Focus Wagon?  TWO (but it's awful tight!!)

 

 

 

 

[turquoisedude]

There was the inevitable price to pay, however....

 

[turquoisedude]

The first pics!

I was tired and stressed out so I got the machines unloaded and temporarily into the garage.  Miraculously, there was space (we'd used up a lot of the drywall panels, thank goodness!)

 

More pics later when I get back from the Derby, VT Town-Wide garage sale today.

 

And oh yes, you just KNOW these will be getting starring roles in the Ogden Laundry!!

 

[jetcone]

Simply Luscious !

And where there's a washer-boy there is a WILL !! Good retrieving there and let me be the first to welcome you to "Club 1140" LOL !!

 

 

 

[combo52]

YAY a Unimatic Comes To Canada

Welcome to the Extra Fast Spinning club, Paul, just be careful these washers are serious, no loading and unloading when spinning.

Is your new Unimatic a one or two rinse model, I have one of the last WO-65-2s that of coerce was the overflow rinse machine and while lots of fun I converted it to the TWO DEEP rinse WO-65 by changing the timer and timer dial and what a difference when you bleach a load of whites in this washer with 2/3 cup of bleach you can't smell it at all with the 2nd Deep Rinse.

I am sure you will have fun with this washer, John L.

 

[philr]

Oh, it looks like they arrived a bit later than expected?

 

Are you near your phone?!

 

[appnut]

Yay!!  Just in time for winter!!  Winter is perfect for Filtrator dryers--especially towels and sheets.  Nothing like that wonderful fragrance that emits from a running Filtrator as well as the soft clothes.  You might want to lower the temperature setting for the sheets so they won't get cooked. 

 

[tomturbomatic]

YAY!

I am happy for you!

 

[turquoisedude]

Today's progress....

I've gotten into the habit of carefully inspecting any dryers that come into the collection.  Years ago, my first ever vintage stove kinda shorted out on me because the wires had gotten damaged by vibrations in transit.  A whole bunch of screws shook loose from the washer and the dryer so I wanted to make sure there wasn't a bolt lying on a connector or something silly like that.    

 

Fortunately, that was not the case!  I took the dryer apart and found the only 'victims' of transit were the drum light and the germicidal lamp (dang!!).   

 

But the machine went back together again quite nicely, and passed the 120v tests with flying colours. 

 

This Filtrator is ready for laundry!!

 

[turquoisedude]

Yes, here's the 'but'...

So after the dryer, I naturally attacked the washer.   Again, there were a couple of loose screws and one of the four rods which seem to tie the tub down to the washer frame had fallen out in transit.  I hooked both up and all looked fine.

 

I did a dry test and I was able to get the washer to agitate (or should I say 'pulsate') fine.  I tried a spin.  Wondeful!!  It revved up to the full 1140 RPMS and completed it's cycle. 

 

I decided it was time for a water test.  It agitated, no problem. 

 

[turquoisedude]

But on the spin.... Oh boy... 

 

The water drains out fine, the tub seems to start to rev up and then....  The spin stops, as if the machine is severely out of balance, but the spin solenoid keeps clicking on and off, trying to kick the spin off again.  

 

WAAAAHH!

 

Fortunately I do have some literature on the WO-65 (I think I bought that Tech-Talk that covered a wide range of models) and if not, I do have some paper literature (thanks to Jon Charles!)

 

I can't help but think there's something that went out of alignment in transit on me.  The machine seemed to be hard to level (one leveling leg is badly bent) so I will work from there.   

 

I want to get this washer into the laundry room so badly...  

 

 

[gansky1]

Sounds like a bad contact in the spin circuit in the timer.

Welcome to the 1140 club where some items emerge ready for ironing!

 

[philr]

Timer?! 

 

I'll have to search for that tonight...

 

[christfr]

CONGRATS.. SO SO COOL.. KNOW YOUR GONNA LOVE EM....

 

[jetcone]

Okay

it throws the water out that means good windings in the motor, the trouble starts when the start winding is being thrown out of the circuit - that is all inside the motor and that seems fine. It sounds like the spin solenoid is failing, once it gets hot it is shorting in and out?  But the peak load is off the motor once that start winding kicks out ..........I'm thinking if it was a time contact you'd see failure when the start winding was in and there was 26 amps hurling through the circuits. This happens after that.

 

I think it might be a weakening  solenoid that starts to fail once it gets warm, or the spring linkage has gotten disturbed in shipping. Its odd you finding that loose support rod, those are heavily bolted into place, it may have knocked the sprng linkage out of whack !! Go look at the diagrams for how the solenoid connects to the spin rod coming out of the transmission and then check your spring, thats where I'd start.

 

 

 

[cycla-fabric]

Wow, that Focus is built Ford Tough! Amazing that it was able to carry both machines. Good luck with the new purchases, they are great looking machines.

Doug

 

[lebron]

Congrats on your Unimatic acquisition. I would be curious to know as to what is causing the problem. I have a Unimatic that worked fine except for the timer completely crapped out. Gl with fixing it, maybe you can provide me with some clues.

 

[swestoyz]

Oh no!

There are few things that make me more nervous than having something shipped that far, for fear that something might get screwed up along the bumpy road.  Yikes!

 

The washer was running fine before leaving Waterloo, so I suspect something went wonkers during transit.  I still can't believe the cabinet rod came loose!

 

Jon's suggestions of checking out the shift solenoid are a good idea, and if those check out, then there might be something screwy with the spin contact with the timer, as Greg mentioned. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions. 

 

Ben

 

[Unimatic1140]

Congrats Paul, that is the most quintessential Unimatic of them all!

Yes it's either the solenoid or the timer contact. I would try is placing a test electrical cord directly on the solenoid and see if it kicks out, if it does you know for sure it is the timer.

Keep us posted!

 

[turquoisedude]

Did some more testing this morning - the solenoid and the wiring were the first things I checked and they both looked good.  I had a test procedure for the solenoid in that Tech-Talk covering 1950 to 1959 models so I followed it to the letter and per their test method, the solenoid looks good.  I further tested by running the machine through a simulated cycle with the motor leads disconnected from the solenoid terminals.  The solenoid engaged and stayed powered up through the appropriate phases of the cycle and did not seem to overheat.  

 

I tried leveling the washer a bit better than I had previously - it seemed much more solid (the leveling legs are pretty messed up) but when it went into 'spin', the same 'thunk' was heard, the spin stopped momentarily, then the solenoid engaged again to try to get the machine to spin.   This time, as I tried to spin, though, I was observing the rear of the machine.  As the spin solenoid engaged the mechanism seemed to twist to the right; when it kicked out again, the mechanism twisted left again.  For the additional attempts at spin, the mechanism again swung to the right slightly.  I am not sure what exactly this might mean, but I have an awful feeling there's something loose.  I've not spotted it yet, though... 

 

My other thought is because that solenoid seems to be supplying current to the motor, what if there is a problem with the motor itself that's making the solenoid overheat or temporarily short?   Yes, I know, another one of my theories... LOL   Seriously, I have never seen a solenoid with five terminals before!  Was that unique to Frigidaire or did other manufacturers use something like this?  The idea of a replacement is already spinning in my head, but maybe only around 900 rpm's at the moment... 

 

Phil is on his way down to Ogden this afternoon so perhaps between the two of us, we can figure something out!

 

 

 

[swestoyz]

Two things -

<ul>
<li>The leveling legs can be replaced with legs from a Big Load Maytag dryer (1976 through the 90's). </li>
<li>Before tearing into the timer and going hog wild with it, try bi-passing the 'Push to Reset' button, and see if you get the same symptoms with spin.  There is a small possibility that it's causing an issue.  Also, you could try isolating the motor by connecting a test cord to the motor leads, and manually tripping the solenoid to see if you can get the motor repeat the same issue.</li>
</ul>

 

[turquoisedude]

As mentioned, Phil came down to Ogden this afternoon to check out the 'new' Frigidaires.  I did a quick demo for him to show him what exactly had been happening.  

 

He spotted the problem immediately...

 

[turquoisedude]

The real culprit...

And anyone who grew up with lousy wiring like I did should be ashamed of themselves for not having thought of this sooner...   What kept kicking off the washer during spin?

 

This blasted power bar!!  

 

The clicking and stalling Phil heard was actually not the washer clicking... It was the breaker on the power bar; it's an old one (circa 1984) and the breaker would almost, but not quite, trip when the spin 'overload' draw was generated.  

 

I am ashamed of myself, because the first test I did was with the washer plugged directly into a wall outlet (well, ceiling outlet actually, because we are still fiddling with the garage outlets for the drywalling).  The washer ran and could spin then but heavens forbid I was able to make the connection

 

Now, let's see if I can take this defective power bar back to Pascal's Hardware tomorrow... LOL

 

 

 

 

[turquoisedude]

So this time, everything ran normally.  I had to fill the tub to show off the machine to Phil, of course!

 

[turquoisedude]

Needless to say,  I was pretty darn happy too!!

 

Now, as per Ben's suggestion, I'm going to find a set of legs for the Unimatic and get this beastie down to the Ogden Laundry!  I've got LOTS of dirty work clothes from the garage drywalling job from the past two weeks. 

 

I am going to try to slot the Unimatic next to the Canadian MultiMatic and do some side-by-side comparisons.  

 

Phil was filming the first spin test more than I was, so he'll probably be posting that later. 

 

PHEW!!!

 

[swestoyz]

Woo Hoo!! So glad to hear that the problem wasn't with the Frigidaire.  I'm looking forward to seeing these beauties featured in the Ogden Laundry Hall!

 

Ben

 

[combo52]

Unimatic Up And Running

Great guess Ben about a circuit breaker problem, while the other guess were all possible I usually try not to guess unless I am pretty sure what is likely wrong with members appliances and none of the other guesses sounded that likely.

We used several of those cheap power strip's at our Warehouse when testing appliances before we installed permanent wiring and had funny problems with them a few times, and with a UM that drawing around 26 AMPS as it goes into spin for 10 seconds or longer I am not surprised that the power-strip did not like it.

John L.

 

[gadgetgary]

Paul

Same thing happened to me when I connected my HA806 to a powerstrip. It would not engage in spin. When connected directly to the wall, it spun perfectly!

 

[114jwh]

Congratulations Paul - these look great! You must have been happy that it was only the power bar!

 

[tolivac]

Yes,power outlet boxes aren't typically meant to be used with large motor loads such as a washer or many types of power tools.They were meant for lower current electronic gear that doesn't have the large start currents a washer would require when going to spin mode.
The contactor soleniods are similar to those in a washer that are used in the various high current circuits in our transmitters-if the contactor soleniod cycles frequently-it will get warm.If it gets very hot,hums loudly, and then smokes you have a problem.Think washer soleniods would be similar in action.The coil windings can short to each other or to the soleniod case or core.Then the smoke comes out!