This thread (and the appliance geek context behind it) is so cool. I recently bought my first home which came with one of these washers - when I mentioned it to my dad, he revealed my grandfather (who was a design engineer for Whirlpool at the time in St. Joe) had worked on that very direct drive mechanism. Growing up we had what I now recognize was another Whirlpool direct drive washer, but a slightly newer one with a digital panel (guess what failed after thirty years of service?), with a nail driven into the door switch for everyone's convenience. This one already had the switch disabled, and it sounds exactly the same with the same hypnotic quality of watching my clothes swirl around in a toroidal cycle. I only found this thread because I was looking up replacement suspension rods (it works fine, but the drum sags) and I also need to address the knob at some point which always cuts out during a delicate wash near the first spin cycle. The grease smell is also more aggressive than I remember as a child but I suppose this machine is older and it's two decades later