Whirlpool Gold Catalyst Direct Drive

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Matt, do not bust the tabs inside the lower agitator shaft. Those are there so that the bottom of the cam assembly can line up and fit into those tabs, there are two openings with tabs one on both sides of the bottom of the cam and you line those openings up over top the two tabs, each tab snaps into those two holes. If you break even just one of the tabs, the upper auger will be extremely wobbly when it agitates which will cause softener to slightly leak if you use any in the agitators dispenser. Whoever said to bust them, is not trained well. I watched a PartSelect repair video and they said to bust the tabs away, do not do that.

When your taking the agitator apart, it’s simple, lift the whole thing out of the machine and set it on the floor. Most of the time, the upper piece will lift off no issue, but some are harder than that and if yours doesn’t wanna pop off put your feet on the base and pull-up hard on the auger, and it’ll pop right off! This goes for all the dual action whirlpool, Kenmore, kitchenaid agitators.

Hope that clears that up for you! Someone busted a tab in my old whirlpool agitator before I bought it and the top auger wobbling around drove me nuts. The tabs are essentially to snap both prices together, and keep the upper auger turning smoothly.
 
Reply #100

Dan, thank you for taking the time to assist me. I will add that I have chosen to follow the above advice and just leave well enough alone. I have not snapped off any tabs. You are correct on that PartsSelect repair video. By the way, all I did was remove the entire agitator from the washer and pull up on the auger, it will not budge. Maybe I'm just not strong enough lol. Personally, I think the dogs are original to the machine and the auger has never been removed, hence the difficulty. I mean the damn thing has been stuck on there for 22 years now lol.

I just posted about this because I found it strange, as I have never had any issues whatsoever with the Kenmore dual action agitators.
 
Your welcome glad to help. It probably has never been touched before. It’s possible it sat in storage or out of use for a long time as well. But when that time comes that you need to get it out, use as much force as possible lifting upwards on the auger and it will pop off. If it’s really difficult still and won’t budge, soaking the entire piece in a tub of hot water for a while may help loosen it enough to pop off. But for now it works great and seems very clean!
 
Update

Machine continues to work exceptionally well and is a lot of fun to use. Doing a very large load of towels the tub seemed to jerk after the catalyst spin. I noticed this on another WP Gold machine on youtube. Why does it do this?

Go to 7:02

 
So now after the Catalyst spin the tub comes to a sudden stop and jerks the tub. This is now the second time it’s done that. What is that? Brake seems fine on low and high spin. It’s just after the catalyst spin it does this. It’s
 
Sudden stop after catalyst

I’m not sure why it happens, but my Catalyst does the same thing. I’ve had it stop so abruptly it jerks the whole machine, and has pulled the bleach hose off its attachment (it’s only done it once that hard). If I set it to a high speed spin, then let it go through the cycle, it’s perfectly fine. However if it sits for a week, and I try to go straight to catalyst, it’ll stop super hard.
 
Sudden stop after catalyst

So basically if the washer sits for a few days, run a spin cycle first, then do a load? I mean that's odd. It stops just fine after a low spin or high spin. I'm baffled by this. I did see a few of your videos where it does this but never thought much of it. Anyway, thank you for your input.

By the way, I did respond to your email. :)
 
Violence Breaking on direct drive washer

Because of the small load and the low speed operation, the brake can grab badly on a direct drive washer, this has been a problem almost since the beginning of direct drive washers at times.

A little bit of grease on the brake and I do mean a little bit will solve this problem and you will not have any violent braking This is something that should be done if this problem exhibits itself on any direct drive washer in the most severe cases I’ve seen this cause the outer tub to be broken.

John
 
John, it came to an abrupt stop on a very large load of towels. I posted the video a few replies back. If Catalyat is turned off, the brake works perfectly fine and is very gradual when stopping. I fear adding just a tad of grease wouldn’t be effective. That would also mean when the tub stops regularly, it would take extra long to stop, as it’s currently working fine. It’s just after the catalyst spin.

Perhaps Henry’s solution is best.
 
Greasing the brake on a direct dry washer

With a heavy load of towels at high speed of course it’s not going to grab, it’s like jamming on the break in your car at 15 miles an hour versus 60.

Would it really hurt anything if it takes 10 seconds to stop from a normal high-speed spin, Maytag washers took over 10 seconds until they put a stronger brake spring in them to meet you all requirements.

John
 
John, I am referencing 7:02 in the below video. Full load of heavy towels after low spin. The same load came to a nice stop at 32:00 and again at 53:24.

 
Abrupt tub braking whirlpool direct drive washer

Hi Matt, I’m not really sure what your point is sometimes they grab sometimes they don’t if it bothers you grease the break if it doesn’t bother you and you don’t mind ripping out the bleach hose don’t do anything, I’m a problem solver that’s what I’ve done my whole life. If I see a problem that may endanger
the machine I solve it the best way possible, there’s no point in endlessly talking about a problem that you have with a machine either solve it or live with it.

The fact that it does it sometimes and not others, I don’t have an answer for it does seem in my experience that it’s more app to do it the first time it stops in a cycle then the later stops after everything is warmed up, etc.

Hope this helps and I hope you can make it decision About how to deal with it
 
I'm not going to keep weighing in on it. So far, Henry's advice is working (run on high spin first).

John, I do really appreciate your input on my various threads and understand you have lots of years working on these machines. My ideology for each machine is to have it work like it did when it was new (not necessarily brand new) or get as close to that as I can. What I don't want to do is fix one problem and create another. If this machine didn't have the catalyst spin, I would rate this tub brake as of the best I have ever seen in terms of engagement and smoothness. I am also convinced this is common among the lines of these catalyst washers, as I have now seen two others do this. Not sure if they did this fresh out of the factory?

Anyway, I will now consider this issue closed.
 
 
Matt, overly aggressive braking is a known problem with direct-drives, although perhaps not common.  I have two that did it, both after a full refurb (including a new tub support which includes the brake drum), although it can develop on any machine at any time.  It has no relation to whether a machine is a Catalyst, both of mine are not.

It is considered a problem because of the undue stress applied to the suspension springs and potentially some of the hoses as John mentions.  I've read a few comments elsewhere that it can cause breakeage of the motor coupler, which I'm pretty sure isn't possible.

The fix is to apply some grease or silicone lubricant to the inner surface of the brake drum.  The area can be reached without disassembly (other than removing the cabinet).  The target is the drum surface at the open space by the brake shoe pivot so the shoes move into the grease when they rotate.  It obviously can't be applied to the surface of the brake shoes being that they're in firm contact with the drum (unless disassembly is done).
 
Overly aggressive, braking on direct drive washers

Hi Matt, I would not consider it normal for the machine to slam to a stop in the catalyst cycle, especially if it rips up bleach hose loose, this would’ve caused a warranty call which whirlpool tried very hard to avoid of course.

I would try to alleviate the problem rather than ignoring it.

As usual Glenn, you did an Excellent job explaining it, you often do a much better job explaining things than I do. I don’t have the patience because I deal with this every day I guess.

John
 
I will add a very small amount of grease to the brake drum when I swap out my '96 Kenmore. In the meantime, I will just continue to keep a close eye on things. Worse case, if the bleach hose becomes disconnected, I will just reconnect it. I do wish these Whirlpools had the control screws in the front like the Kenmore variant.
 

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