Washing machine failure the drum stopped turning I wonder what could be wrong. (check the pics)


I knew the belt was slipping because I would hear it squeak sometimes but I didn't think it was this bad. My guess is it was slipping and ate through the pulley on the drive motor. Washer isn't even that old I think we were over filling it tub.

Wow! I've never seen anything like that before! Something must have been out of alignment perhaps.

Anyway, repair looks straightforward enough: replace the dead pulley, and then check the belt tension and geometry afterwards.

Cheers

Yeah it should be easy if I can get the pulley off. They do sell the pulley alone so it must come off but I think it's pressed on.

You may already have this fixed, but you can rent a puller to remove a pulley. Mostly on that stuff, these days, the replacement is sold as an assembly with the bracket already attached. You get a pulley assembly, not just a pulley. That makes it much, much easier to fix and you don't need any special equipment to remove it. I'd recommend getting the replacement part before tearing it all apart so you know what exactly needs to be removed.

Jim
Edit: on closer inspection, it looks to me like the bearing seized on the pulley shaft, which is why there is so much buildup of belt material around that pulley (the pulley stopped turning smoothly and the belt slipped on it). That led to overheating and eventually the pulley broke. You may want to see how smoothly the remains of that pulley spins and make sure you don't need to replace the whole assembly the pulley drives (due to a bad bearing). That assembly looks like the motor...

Just ordered the parts online yesterday so not fixed yet but thanks for the confidence

The pulley that is broken is on the directly stuck on the end of the motor armature so I don't think there is a bearing there.

I think what happened is the drum got stuck which stopped the belt but the motor kept going. That shaved off the belt and ate through the pulley.

The motor does still operate so I hope I can get the old pulley off and a new one on there. A belt and pulley is 15 bucks and the motor with a pulley is 130.

I read a guy saying he breaks the old one off with a chisel and pounds on a new one.

OK, that makes sense. You can rent a pulley puller from an auto parts place for cheap. It's got two little arms (some have 3) that grab the pulley, then a screw in the middle which you turn and it pushes against the end of the motor shaft. It's pretty easy, you'll manage no problem.

Spin the pulley around and look for a set screw. If there's a set screw to lock the pulley to the shaft, it will pull off easier if you loosen this screw first. More likely, it uses a keyed shaft or a D-shaped shaft and just presses on.

Good luck!

Jim

Impressive.

I would agree, your drum probably seized, or became high friction, and the motor pully slipped on the belt and melted itself. It may point at the machine having been overloaded, or the drum bearings failing. The belts have a remarkably high destruction temperature, I once managed to do something similar with a cast aluminium pulley on a 4 horsepower petrol engine, and the pulley actually melted before the belt snapped!

Looking at the middle picture, the shaft has a groove machined around it near the end that small plastic tangs from the pulley snap into to stop it coming off. I would imagine that the shaft is keyed in some way to stop the pulley rotating on it. If you break or cut off those tangs, the pulley will come off much more easily. It may even pull off with hand pressure.

pca

What actually happens from a heat-transfer perspective with slipping belts is that the belt continues to move and so each little section of belt gets a chance to cool as it goes around before coming into contact with the hot pulley again. The pulley is constantly experiencing the friction so it gets hotter and hotter and never has a chance to cool. The longer the belt, the more pronounced the effect. So the pulley can get much hotter than the belt.

Got it fixed

I just cut the pulley in half to get it off. The armature has a tapered and splined shaft holding it on. I think those tines are to keep you from pounding it too far down or give you an idea of where to stop pounding.

I don't think there is anything stuck between the inner and outer drums so I think the problem was just us filling it too full.

There isn't really much of a belt tensioner just some bent coat hanger wire thing.

If I hear the belt squeaking again I will replace it right away next time.

Good job!

I wonder if maybe some clothing or something jammed it up the first time around? Hope so!

Cheers

Congrats! Must feel good to have that done by your birthday

Happy birthday!

Yeah I saved so much money I need to go buy myself a present

I'm glad you fixed this yourself. I'm helping a friend fix his hot tub. He's an engineer, and I know he can do it, but he's reluctant to jump in. It feels really good to fix something yourself.

For your present, go buy a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, my favorite book and about this very subject!

:-)

Good going!

Jim

If you happen to have any hot tub questions, I happen to be a pool engineer...

..or a copy of "The Case For Working With Your Hands (or Why Office Work is Bad for us and Fixing Things Feels Good)" by Matthew Crawford.

An excellent read: same idea, different perspective. These two books sum up my entire malaise about work.