Westy L5 - Closer, but...

[turquoisedude]

The cold weather on the weekend kept me in the basement fiddling with the Westy. The goal for this weekend was to try and stop the leak from the clothes loading door. I picked up some closed-cell foam weatherstripping tape and stuck it to the lip on the inside part of the door. I hauled out the scary plumbing and gave it whirl. No luck. I let the machine dry overnight and tried again on Sunday. I added a second band of gasket on the inside door glass. Just add water and...still no luck. I was a bit frustrated, so I tried using a piece of wider gasket. That almost totally stopped the leak! So I went one better and tried cutting a notch out of the gasket so that a thin section would fit the inside lip of the door. The piece of gasket I had was small, but it seemed to work!!
It's not a great photo of the gasket, but I hope this shows what I tried to do here.

 

[turquoisedude]

So I ran it through a full cycle

For the first time. I was feeling pretty proud of myself, but that was not going to last...
I noticed this drip from the bottom of the tub, right at the tub ring joint. I was crestfallen....

 

[turquoisedude]

I resisted the urge to panic....

And observed the machine to determine what was causing the drip. If I hadn't been running the full cycle, it would have been more difficult to figure out! I noticed that when water was running into the machine, the drip was present. So, that led me to this - the water inlet! I had put a piece of pipe in the inlet to replace the original sleeve that had deteriorated, then I later pulled it out thinking it was causing the rubbing sound when the tub was turning! I may need to take off the cast iron weight to properly reseat the fill inlet, but that will be next weekend's project...

 

[turquoisedude]

Front view - with water!

Just a very small drip from the door with the larger gasket in place. So, if next week's experiment works, I should be ready to wash soon!!

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Very cool Paul!! Ingenuity is a great thing, and you seem to have it down pat. Impressive!

Gordon

 

[mickeyd]

I was crestfallen..... but I resisted the urge to panic....

And then you had a break-though. How exciting! The drama of the fix! Good for you! Can't wait to see it sloshing with lots of water, and nary a leak in sight.