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Senior Member
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 1,150
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How not to install your free-to-you washing machine (LONG READ)
If you've been following my posts (no reason why you should be) you'd know that I've been having an adventure with washing machines. The little ones. Front loading, aberrant, mutant little abominations that thrash, leak, spew foam, rattle, thump, and shake (not stir) all structual things for blocks in all directions.
Ok. I'm exaggerating. But you get my point. All these washing machines share common features and faults. They're all based on the same, flawed design, and the one thing common to all manufacturers is that they discontinue production of the three most commonly-failing parts the tuesday after the last complete assembly leaves the production line: The outer drum, the control board, and the door seal. This stuff is so common, and the machines so similar that many share the same sensors and motors. Even some sheet metal is identical.
What this means is that there are a crapload (sorry moderators, I'm being literally descriptive here) of cheap-to-free 24", front-loading washing machines out there. They're on Craigslist, community bulletin boards, Brian's Song, and sidewalks all over America. They're advertised as "stopped working -- don't know why" "Won't spin" "Won't drain" "leaks." The owners are universally stupified as to what could be wrong, but all insist that it should be "easily fixable with a part." That should be the end of the story right there -- if the fix was so easy, why sell the machine?
I suspect that most all of these have been gone over before being kicked to the curb. They've been determined to have failed one of the three universally-discontinued parts, but after paying for the repairman to come out twice (once to decide the wrong thing is bad, and again to replace the wrong thing and then give up on the job -- but two billable service calls -- ), the owner doesn't want to pay an addition $25 to dispose of the carcass. He's already past halfway to the cost of a new machine.
And that's where I started my search for a new-to-me set of washing machine problems. There was a learning curve. The first was a Splendide. It was old, but Splendide has an excellent reputation, so I fell for the "won't do it's diags -- probably the door sensor" routine. A $100 later it was on a pallet outside and I was beginning my education. 5 months later I disposed of it after putting a couple hundred dollars into people's best guesses. I was able to part it out enough to recoup costs.
Next was a Samsung. Hey -- they make good hard drives. How much different is a washing machine? At free, it was also too expensive. It told me several things were wrong with itself, but the errors didn't really make sense. That's because it was the controller board that was unable to read the sensors. From its point of view, everything else was wrong. I replaced the board. That's when I discovered that a "new (other)" control board for a 24" front loading washing machine is actually a board that was DOA in a brand-new machine. This was true over several sellers and prices.
The LG wasn't much better, although it felt more substantial. I tossed it when discovered that I had to disassemble the entire thing to install the door seal.
That brought me to the Whirlpool. It was free, 40 miles away, and on the island, so getting there didn't involve ferry fees. She said it didn't drain. I'm used to that now, and I've spent about $100 disposing of dead washers, so I made a proposal: I need a washing machine, and you need garage space. I'll come over and troubleshoot it. If I think I can fix it, I'll take it home. If it's one of the three unobtanium parts, I'll haul it to the recyclers for you, BUT YOU PAY THE DISPOSAL FEE. I sent a hi-res picture of a hummingbird with the email. She agreed, but only because she liked the picture.
A half-hour after arriving I'd pulled a quarter out of the drain pump and successfully ran a cycle. Except for the SUDS error. That could be a sensor, the pump, the machine off level, or the darn controller board. I changed to the rinse/spin cycle and it completed to END. That didn't point to a controller failure. I can fix that.
I hauled it home. I had help loading it into the van. He dropped his end and dinged the sheet metal. Rats! At home, I muscled it out, set it up, and ran several tests. Then I pulled the pump. The impeller had been chewed up by the quarter. A week and $30 later I ran a half-dozen loads on different settings, all successfully. I had a free-to-me washing machine that only cost about $250 in prior mistakes.
That was half the battle. The short half, as it turned out. The long, uphill fight was getting it into the bus. At 165# with a 23-3/8" reach, it was a well-matched opponent. It had the advantage of a low center of gravity and a mind of its own. I was armed with brains, thumbs, and a variety of miscellaneous objects with which to attack and defend. I hauled it with the hand truck to the vicinity of my front door and the games commenced.
I measured. I measured everything. Then I did it again. The washing machine would EXACTLY clear the door and the interior spaces to the alcove it would live in. It would PROBABLY clear the big seats up front.
I prepped the alcove. I bought a small drain tray to go underneath. the dimensions were correct, but they didn't include the rolled upper lip. It was exactly too big to fit. I trimmed off the lip and it went in. I repositioned the water taps, replaced the outlet, and removed the central vacuum. The interior was prepped.
Now I had to get that 165# box from the ground to the floor. I guessed it to be about 5 feet up. I had no help. What to do? I got a pair of 2x12 planks 12' long and made a ramp to the step below the floor level. I put a transmission jack at the base of the steps and a high-lift floor jack at the bottom end. I ran a tow strap around the driver's seat pedestal and attached a come-along to it. Then I cargo strapped the washing machine to the hand truck, attached the come-along, and eased the load onto the ramp.
Once secured on the ramp, I worked the jacks together, raising one, using milk crates to set the next jack, raising that one, etc, until the ramp was almost level. Then I started easing it toward the door with the come-along.
Almost immediately the center of gravity responded to the slope of the ramp and the washing machine pitched onto it's front. Great. My choices were to continue, which would drag the front on the ramp, or completely start over. I chose to continue. The come-along needed to be reset twice, but I got it to the door. And jammed it there. I had the clearance except for the latch pin in the frame. It extended 1/4" past the frame. It could not be removed. The screen door however took up an inch. If I could get the screen door off . . .
I had the door blocked with the washer. I was inside. I needed to reset the jacks and reverse the come-along to move the screen door enough to get at the hinge screws. It was a six foot drop from the top of the washer, but I crawled over it and got outside. The rain started. What the folks in Kansas call a "frog strangler." The ramp got slippery. I got a ladder, and after several iterations of ramp adjustments and come-along action I got the screws out of the screen door.
I reversed the process and made it through the door. But I still needed to get it up the last step, and remember, the hand truck and machine have shifted. the hand truck now upright instead of flat, and the washer is on its face. The added length of the hand truck won't clear the driver's seat. The passenger seat is in the way of pulling the machine sideways. I need to separate the hand truck from the machine.
No big deal, right? Just remove the cargo strap and it should all come apart. Wrong. When it shifted, one of the little leveling feet on the washer locked into the had truck frame like a keyhole bolt. It was on the underside of everything, up against the stairwell. Gravity was on its side. It ended up being a brute strength operation to extract the foot. the new upholstery on the passenger seat suffered. But I got the washer to climb over the hand tuck and the step. It was inside.
I passed the hand truck over the top of the machine and restrapped them together. It was an easy haul to the pocket door, where I discovered that the control dial stuck out too far to clear the doorway. I restrapped again in the proper orientation to go through the doorway, which was not the proper orientation to go into the alcove directly on the other side of the doorpost.
I managed to turn the machine 90º by opening the water closet door. I pointed it at the alcove and used a pair of PVC pipes as rollers to start it over the edge of the drip tray. As it started over it caught on the alcove door catches. I had to reverse the process to remove the catches. Next time in I coaxed everything into place only to discover that the water taps were in the way of fulling inserting the washing machine. Rinse and repeat, so to speak, but this time on full insertion one of the leveling feet caught the drip tray edge and split it. Rinse and repeat. Toss the drip tray. It all slides in easier without it anyway.
And that's the story. 5.5 hours of DIBYOS (do it by your own self) installation. I scratched up the front of the machine dragging it on the ramp. I put a hole in my new upholstery I destroyed the tray. But I ran a load of clothes in the RV. They're out on the clothesline right now. Too bad about the rain.
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Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
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TARDIS Project 2001 Mountain Aire DP40' 330CAT
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