The used washing machine stopped draining this week. It’s a 2008 model but purchased in January 2009 and we bought the set used in 2016. Always a pain when something you use all the time stops working. I really didn’t want to have to find a newer set.
I recently ran across a chart that gives an estimate of the working life of appliances. I thought it was rather pessimistic. Perhaps it’s my age.
This means that our teenager washing machine was due for repairs. We actually have a 16 year old grandson but 2009 otherwise doesn’t seem that long ago. But who ever heard of a mailbox only lasting 10 years or for that matter the short lifespan they predict for home essentials or kitchen items? These actually last for generations. At least in our family.
The washing machine has a clean out at the bottom that is luckily also a drain for the water that was still in the machine. All I had to do was direct it to the floor drain with towels.
I have the wonders of the internet to find answers so I looked up all I could find about replacing a water pump on a front loading washing machine. Most of the information was for either top loaders or complicated full cabinet front loaders. I’m not sure why we were so fortunate but our washing machine has a separate panel for the bottom end where the pump is located and I could avoid disconnecting the control panel and removing the whole front of the machine. Just three screws taken out below the panel and it was open.
Otherwise the water pump replacement is relatively simple. Removing the old one with just two power connections, two hoses and two screws and replacing it with a new one. Of course my job was not that simple.
The wires were on plugs that didn’t even have locks so just directly pulled out. And the pipes are connected with squeeze clamps so just need a slip joint pliers to disconnect them and slip off the hoses.
There are several “replacement” pumps for this model on Amazon for far less than the OEM pump. But looking at all of them it was difficult to determine if they were going to be a direct replacement. The actual part was $170 which was a bargain compared to parts sites, but luckily there was a returned pump for only $50. Not much more than the knock offs. So I ordered it and had to wait the two days for delivery.
I had already removed the front panel so I was ready the afternoon the pump was delivered. I disconnected the old pump but discovered that the new one had a broken flange that held the pump to the washing machine. At first I was dismayed but then realized that the actual pump was attached to the drain part and I still had the old drain housing. So I unscrewed the new pump from the defective housing and the old pump from the dirty but functional housing. I washed the old housing as well as I could but there was still some staining on it. That really doesn’t matter as it was stained when that pump was working!
Since I had the identical part moving the working pump motor to the old housing was easy. I was a bit worried it would leak but I added an extra screw from the old assembly and that seemed to draw the pump quite nicely to the housing.
Then it was just a matter of screwing it back to the bottom of the casing and reconnecting the wires and the hoses. The larger hose was not that easy to reconnect. It seemed that the clamp didn’t want to expand enough to go over the hose when it was replaced on the larger pipe. The smaller hose clamp went back on much more easily.
I worked on it for some time wiggling it and moving it up over the pipe. I wasn’t even sure it was well clamped when I gave up and tried it. Luckily it doesn’t leak.
The test was just the rinse and spin cycle and I watched it through the whole cycle. Eureka! The new pump worked and the water drained out just like it was supposed to. Of course after a fix like this you are just waiting for the next thing to go wrong. After I fixed the old dishwasher it wasn’t long before it had a problem that was more serious and would have required a new control board. So I hope that doesn’t happen with the washing machine.
I cleaned and put the bottom panel back on but also ran into a problem. The instructions said to replace the middle screw first and then the edges. But I could not line up that screw. I just screwed the outside edges and then had to get a small wrecking bar out of the garage to prop up the middle of the panel so that the holes lined up and I could replace the screw.
We are happy to have the washer back though. Seems like there is always a lot of laundry even though there are only two of us.