Westinghouse Eighteen

[aquatop]

We've got a Westinghouse Eighteen that I think has finally given up the ghost.

It's got the 2 sides of the dial, Normal and Gentle. For a while on the rinse/spin area of Normal, it was makes like an electric clicking sound and not advancing. You could stop the dial and turn it over to the rinse/spin of Gentle and it would proceed as normal to drain, spin, rinse, etc.

Then it would work ok on Normal too for a while.

Now it's stuck with a full load of water, and even trying every click-stop on both Normal and Gentle, there's just a buzzing/humming sound coming from the motor down below.

We had a neighborhood appliance guy come out, friend of a friend type of thing, and he basically said that the thing was too old to get parts for and he apologized but that was that. At the time we had had it drained before he got there by advancing click by click on the dial, so when he was here in person he didn't actually hear it running. It ran fine several more times since but today finally it appears to not want to run any longer. I unplugged it for a bit and tried it again but that didn't do anything.

Any thoughts or advice?

PS I found this forum by finding this 2004 thread here: https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?229 and saw the photo looked exactly like mine!

 

[turquoisedude]

My first thought would be that the motor internal starting relay or switch is failing.  Can you get the washer to spin without a full tub of water easily or does the motor still just hum?  

 

 

 

 

 

[aquatop]

I'll give that a try tonight after work.

Last night while it was still full, I did rotate the motor both directions by tugging on the belt.

Emptying all that water a cereal bowl at a time was super fun

I have a multimeter and while I'm not very skilled at using it, if there's some simple continuity checks that would be good to do let me know.

Thanks!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Yes I agree it may be the motor start switch. Those centrifugal switches generally can be fixed depending on the brand/design of the motor.

Try depressing the lid switch, put the machine in spin and quickly rotate the wash tub counter-clockwise and see if you can get it going.

 

[combo52]

Dying WH TL Washer

It is either a bad timer or the motor centrifugal switch, if you can get the motor to start and run at any point on the timer over and over you do not have a bad CS, The CS on these WH motors are a weak point and difficult to fix, but anything is possible.

 

Getting to the CS is not easy, you have to remove the motor and dissemble the water pump and take the motor apart to even get to the CS, usually the motor shaft is very rusted and you will need at least a new pump seal etc.

 

John L.

 

[aquatop]

Whelp, no joy on both running empty and also pressing the lid switch while trying to manually spin-start the tub.

Sounds like the CS might be above my pay grade.

 

[cfz2882]

Are you anywhere close to Belle Fourche?

 

[aquatop]

Wait, really?? I'm in Spearfish! lol

 

[cfz2882]

Hehe,you are very close ...I fix motors and washers,should be able to get it going again,we will have to arrange something

 

[aquatop]

@cfz2882 and I were able to connect in person, and he gave the washer a good examination. Unfortunately it looks like the bearings on the top side of the motor are shot.

He figured the date code and this old girl was from 1975 so it had a good life. Didn't make sense for me to source a different motor and try to adapt it, so he took it off my hands and will try to cobble something together in his spare time.

I'm grateful that a community of enthusiasts like this exists!

 

[goatfarmer]

AW comes through again!