atomic_fungus (atomic_fungus) wrote,
atomic_fungus
atomic_fungus

#7738: That pump was bad

I don't know how bad except that when I finally got it off the motor, part of the lower seal came out in pieces. Rubber or silicone rubber, and it had hardened. The motor shaft is steel and it rusted; and the rust made the shaft bigger (that why paint always looks bubbly over rusting metal) and the plastic insert was basically molded to the shaft's rust-ragged surface.

I had to cut off the top of the pump housing, then cut away part of the impeller so I could see the shaft; and then I tapped a small flat screwdriver into the joint between impeller and shaft. That was enough to get a start, and once I'd broken that chunk out of the way, the rest came off pretty quickly. Wire-wheeled the shaft to get all the crap off, gave it the slightest touch of grease.

The shield that goes beween pump and motor (and protects motor from water) has a crack in it, where I mistakenly pried when I was trying to get the old pump off intact. Small crack, and I've patched it with 5-minute epoxy. Letting that cure now. That crack is entirely under a rubber piece that rides on the shaft and which covers the hole through which the shaft goes, to reach the pump. I don't expect it to be an issue.

The switch, however, is an entirely sealed unit. That's good, because it means there's no dust and crap inside it. It's bad because I can't fix it if there's something wrong with it; but I don't expect anything to be, given its construction.

Dripped a little 3-way oil into the centrifugal switch housing, spun the shaft, flipped the switch back and forth--that's probably more than enough. It operates easily enough as it is.

So the game plan is to put the motor back in, and replace the capacitor, and try running it without any load on the motor. If it starts, we're already better off than we were. If it doesn't--

Right now I'm into this repair for about $25 in parts and $9 for doing laundry at the laundromat last weekend. It'll be another $6 for laundry this weekend (because we'll be smart enough to bring our own detergent rather than buying it) and $160 for a new motor.

...or $600 for a new washer, and likely a month's wait for it to be delivered. *sigh* Which means another $24 spent at the laundromat in the meantime....

And I literally have no idea what to expect. I'm hoping that the work I've done fixed the problem. But we won't know until I've done the work and tested it.

And so, off we go.
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