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GE Front Load Washing Machine Bearing Replacement
My Wife's favorite washing machine bearings went out during Covid. No parts could be had. I had to buy another machine for her because I make a lot of dirty clothes and hate to do laundry. This has been tucked away in my shop waiting for it's turn to be repaired. Not thinking I knocked the old bearings and seal out, reinstalled the new ones, and polished the shaft before thinking of posting this project. Since its picture heavy it will take a few posts to cover everything. If you have a front load washer bearings are cheap and easy to get now. I bought my bearings from frontloadbearings.com. They have a video series on how to remove and install the parts. I used a long brass drift and a hammer to remove and replace the parts.
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I had to strip almost everything out of the Cabinet to do this job, my plan here is to walk you thru putting everything back together. The Cadillac is doing double duty as a parts shelf.
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After installing the bearings and polishing the shaft down with 500 grit first then Crocus cloth it is time for re-assembly. The first thing I had to do was clean all the leftover funk out of the two halves of the tank. Dog hair, lint, soap deposits, all had to be removed. Where the two halves come together is a foam O-Ring gasket. The factory service manual said I didn't need to replace unless it was torn but in the picture you can see it had a pattern memory in the gasket. If it leaked I would have to strip the entire job back down to fix.
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Once all the groves in the other half was cleaned out I mated the two halves back together and torqued the bolts.
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Not wanting to reuse the Tank gasket as it has multiple sealing surfaces. I bought a replacement. We have used this machine enough to sling the bearings out of it and plan on doing it again. Being a "Magnet Drive" the only wear parts are bearings, seals, dispenser motor, water valves, pump, and circuit board. All but seals and bearings can be replaced without too much trouble in most models. The inside gasket clamp was stuck bad, I had to use my trusty Klein Screwdriver to free it from the groove.
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I decided to use the hoist I have for installing and removing T-Tops in boats to install the completed tank into the cabinet.
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All the stabilizers were reconnected, the upper springs were reattached, then I could release the tank from the hoist. More in the next post.
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Round 2 on the Washing Machine Bearing Replacement
Crappie fishing today so I'm working early to get this up.
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The Door Washer and rinse hose fitting was fairly easy to work back into the new Tank Gasket. The Lite took a bit more effort. Once both were in I hooked them up.
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The Hall Effect Device clips on the back or inside side of the Stator before reinstalling the Stator to the Tank assembly. The Rotor is full of magnets on the inside (3 phase Stator) so sliding the Rotor over onto the splines of the shaft was a trick due to the magnets pulling the splines out of alignment.
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Next was the Control Board, lots of plugs going in every direction. This burned out once before, the power company switched the power on - off - back on while the machine was spinning at a very high speed. Well, the Rotor / Stator became a 3 phase generator while coasting. When the power came back on and the SCR's on the control board "Gated" they were immediately fried or Blown. We now have a device to protect it from happening again, it prevents power restoration for 3 minutes.
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These Washers have two massive counterweights one on the bottom of the tank and one on top. Here I laid the machine down on its back to install the bottom one. The top installs the same way.
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This top front support was rusted up badly where detergent had leak on the Galvanize coating numerous times. I wire brushed the loose stuff off before taking a picture. A trip to my old Blasting Cabinet (sold as scrap metal but I brought home and repaired) and Glass Bead Blasting the damaged area before putting 3 coats of Cold Galvanizing spray.
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I laid it back down to install the front. A very tight spring loaded clamp is used to seal the Tank Gasket to the front panel. It was easier to install the clamp with the machine on its back. After standing up I installed the door.
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Reinstalling the Auto Dispenser with a new Dispenser motor first I realized afterwards I had to loosen it all up to get the top counterweight in, hooking back up all the hoses, then putting the braces back in place finished up my work on top.
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Reinstalling the back was straight forward except numerous wiring clips had to be placed back in their original positions before closing up.
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Finishing Assembling and Testing
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After installing the front control panel and top panel I had one screw leftover, I'm good with that but I hope it is not crucial. So just to make sure no mess was created inside on the first run I washed a load of shop towels and rags that I had in a box waiting to be cleaned.
