With the Blackstone washer repairs done and the KitchenAid KDS54 leak-proofed, I thought I'd take a run at the GE BOL automatic that I got at the big appliance auction last November.  

I figured it would be good practice to tear into this washer before attacking the 1953 or 1957 GE's that are ever so patiently waiting their restoration...  

Mechanically, this washer is very similar to the 1953 GE.  The transmission and clutch seem to be identical.  When I tested the 1960 one, I did manage to get it up to a spin after some messing around but it would never agitate.   My theory is that there is a transmission problem; and to get to a GE washer transmission, you've got to get the tub out. 

Full disclosure - I have been trying to get this bleeding tub out for a month now... I think what finally did it was some PB Blaster on the tub nuts.  I put on several coats since I got a can in Vermont on Thursday and today I managed to undo them without stripping or breaking them.  

One does have to be careful not to break the fill flume when removing the tub.  Mr.Know-It-All here very cleverly broke this one BEFORE removing the tub...  FFFFFF....Flipping Heck!

I should be able to repair, though. 

This was encouraging to see.  Both the transmission boot and the water level switch diaphragm seem to be in good shape still.   Amazing and very lucky since both parts are NLA!

So I took off the belt and figured I had nothing to lose by seeing what happened when I turned the drive pulley by hand. 

When I turn it clockwise (spin), the pulley turned smoothly, but did not make a full revolution.  The pulley seemed to hit something and would turn no further.   I then tried to turn it counter-clockwise (activation); the pulley turned maybe a little more than a half a revolution, then hit something and seemed to lock into it.   I somehow managed to free it up again by turning the pulley clockwise again.   On the next attempts I turned the pulley slowly until I felt the 'stop'.  I did notice the the basket drive was moving as I turned the pulley. 

So now I'm going to be studying the transmission service notes that I have on GE's but before I go off on a wild goose chase, does this sound familiar to anyone?   My first (and as we all know usually wrong) guess is that this may have something to do with the Snubber Band that can cause the dreaded 'sympathetic spin'...   

Any advice or suggestions are always welcome - I've never torn into a GE transmission before!

Well, here's my first incorrect assumption!  The transmission on the 1953 GE automatic washer uses two belts, not one, so they are probably completely different.  Good thing I wasn't tearing the 53 apart to use its transmission... LOL  If anything, the 60 would be sacrificed if the '53 needed a part!!

Looks this poor machine was used as a cement mixer - that's some hard water!

Aren't those fill-flume mountings silly?  Breaking one is part of the solid-tub GE initiation course.  Congratulations, you will never do that again :-)

Yes, this washer sure saw some rough duty in its lifetime, Greg!   Given where I found it, I suspect it was used in a summer cabin where they pulled water directly out of the nearby lake or swamp....  

I'm not going to be opening up the transmission today - the sun is shining and it is NOT, I repeat, NOT snowing today!

Stay tuned for more updates and photos of the oily mess I will probably wind up making.... LOL 

Yes they sure f**king are.

And, yes, I broke my first one on my first try removing the cover from the WA-850P I got from Colorado. Fortunately Mr. Nunn had a spare but I'm still swearing about it. Isn't interesting that your absolute BOL has a fill flume with the opening for the elegant TOL  "Rinse" dispenser on top that has been plugged. I have seen some with and some without so there must have been a big box at the Louisville factory that they just grabbed from to complete these machines. Even more bizarre, on both my Solid Tub machines, the little gasket covering the top of the fill flume as it connects to the outer tub gasket is help in place by two of those flimsy brass paper clips that we had to use on our book reports in Parochial school. I'm not kidding. Yours is swathed in some kind of goop that I'll bet Hans put over the whole thing.

I'm rooting for you Paul even though you are, after all, my ARCH GE NEMESIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. There's still 1, count it, 1 stuck tub bolt on Aunt Clara that I've PB blasted, drilled, torched and sworn at vigorously that is refusing to budge.

Let's help future Filter-Flo virgins; pay attention now:

WHEN TRYING TO REMOVE THE COVER FROM A SOLID-TUB FILTER-FLO WASHER MADE BETWEEN 1957 AND 1960, POP THE FRONT CLIPS AND VERY CAREFULLY NUDGE THE WHOLE COVER STRAIGHT BACKWARDS (about 2-3 inches) WITHOUT LIFTING IT UP MUCH UNTIL THE COVER FLANGE CLEARS THE FILL ASSEMBLY AT THE BACK RIGHT HAND CORNER OF THE MACHINE. USE A FLASHLIGHT AND PEEK INSIDE TO MAKE SURE IT HAS CLEARED THE LITTLE HOSE OR THE FLANGE WILL SNAP THE END OF THE PLASTIC FLUME OFF.

Sheesh, it seems this summer just flew by with the big CBS Wash-In and the move from the crumbling core of downtown Montreal to the wilds of St-Liboire!  Every time I was down in Ogden, I kept meaning to get back to work on the '60 GE, but no... 

Well, housework and cooking be damned I said yesterday and went on the offensive!

I knew I'd have to remove the transmission in order to service it, so that's what I did yesterday.   First, though, I had to take off the transmission boot.  I was very happy that it was flexible enough to do so and, fingers crossed, will be relatively sound when eventually re-installed.

Hello down there!!

I've never done any transmission work on a GE, so I proceeded slowly and cautiously... 

It wasn't as bad as I had imagined!  Heavy beastie, but not impossible to handle. 

In the last picture, the transmission has been upended to remove the pulley and cover, hopefully without creating an oil slick on the basement floor.  Hubby's off to Brazil for 2 weeks so after I drive him to the airport, guess where I'm heading??  

Question: to pull the drive block from a GE of this vintage, can I use a regular wheel puller??

Paul you are now in uncharted territory even for me, I have NEVER tried to fix a GE washer transmission, I took one or two apart just to see how they worked.

GE always had such a good rebuilding program for their washer transmissions that I never bothered trying to fix one, GEs transmissions were always one of their weak features anyway. GE automatic washers were like the Volkswagen they always needed a new engine,  GE needed a new [transmission ] and in both cases the company was good at keeping good rebuilt ones available and they were also easy to install in both cases.

We have a 1960 Pair and a 1958 pair of GEs and I want to restore one pair, I am hopping that one of the washers has a decent transmission in it. Otherwise I may find out what you are going through.

The get the bottom cover off I would use a tapered putty knife and just drive it under the steel plate.

rebuilt the 1956 GE transmission.

 A tapered putty knife will do nothing bend and waste your time.

I had tapped all around the bottom plate with a chisel ,hitting those raised counter weights. It took several days but it slowly began to lift.

If your tranny is jammed it could be the brake material has come loose and is jammed in the gears, ( seen that before) , or the nylon snubber has broken off. Have not seen  a gear failure inside a GE tranny before, that would be new.

the same way. Slammed --together LOL !

We had a mild day about a week or so ago, so I figured it would be a good time to haul the 'ol GE transmission out to the garage to see if we could coax that bearing frame loose. 

We used persuasion and a blowtorch this time.... LOL   But that did it - we got the transmission open!

Now, what looks wrong in this picture?  I was amazed that I could even get the darn thing to spin!!

I'm not afraid to reveal how clueless I am; what was wrong inside that transmission, besides all the rust?

Spot on, Alan!  I don't know a heck of a lot about GE transmissions, but in the documentation for this one, there should have been 54 ounces of oil in it!  I didn't see any evidence of an oil leak - I suspect that the oil leaked out a loooonnnng time before I found this washer.   GE's do have a nasty habit of losing their oil when a seal or two fail.

Now I'm patiently waiting for some warmer weather to clean up that gunk and do some further disassembly.  Our local hardware store in Ogden is going to assume we're living off the grid when they see how much kerosene gets purchased... LOL 

It does look like in addition to have almost no oil in it that some moisture has also contaminated the oil. The washer spinning with such low oil levels is not so much a problem as agitation would be without lucubration of the moving gears.

John,  do you think that this gummed up, contaminated oil is the reason why I could never get this beastie to agitate?  Or should I say 'activate'?   LOL

thats LOW! It should almost be full of oil. You gotta leak, and I'll bet its at the top going into the tub and down the drain, which is why it looks like that oil is water contaminated.

I think you can get the seals still for the top but getting that tub support off to do that is near impossible at this point. 

Hmmmmm............thinking hat on

We didn't get the snow that battered a lot of the Eastern Seaboard up in Ogden, but it was effing cold!  It was not a good time to be messing with a well-chilled Norge out in the garage, so I thought I'd do some more messing with the ol' GE transmission... 

The doctrine I have on these transmissions indicated that the seal here at the top of the agitator shaft should be removed as part of the process to dismantle the transmission.   It literally disintegrated when I attempted to tap it off.  OOPSIE.... 

Then there was this son-of-a-thing.... The basket hub was in pretty rough shape to begin with;  I snapped the bolts holding the hub clamp off while trying to remove them.  I managed to drill them out, but I was not able to even budge the hub off the spin shaft.

I also observed that the agitate shaft is totally and completely rusted, hence the lack of agitation... 

I am thinking that this is going to end badly...  I do have some spare GE parts, but I had gotten them specifically for the '57 Filter-Flo (yes, it's still around and sitting around in the garage).   I think I know why the GE service literature specified 'replace transmission' as a solution to the 'no activation' problem in their diagnosis charts!

Sigh...  It was with a heavy heart that I made the decision to walk away from this 'project' on the weekend.   I just don't have the know-how, equipment, and spare parts to rebuild a GE washer transmission;  I hate to give up but there was just no easy way out of this one... 

I am trying not to take this as a personal failure;  I learned a great deal about the mechanics of a GE washer and tearing the machine down will hopefully help me with the '57 and '53 washers that I have been reluctant to work on due to my lack of familiarity with GE washers.   And I can take some solace knowing that I was able to save a good motor/clutch, timer, water level switch, and possibly the water valve.  That motor may just be what the '53 needs!

And in the greater scheme of things,  I will now have room for the Norge (which I am remaining optimistic about), eventually the ABC-O-Matic, and there may even be something new making its way into the washer collection soon...  Stay tuned.

That breaks my heart.  I don't believe I've ever seen a sadder photo - a dead Filter-flo.

lawrence

Somebody Save That !!!

This was an honorable quest with unexpected outcomes and rewards. Being your arch-nemesis I should be jumping up and down and clapping my hands with glee(isn't that how our people are supposed to do it?) at your trials but it occurs to me that you chose to rescue a machine that on its best day was a parts-donor. Do put aside this frustration for now and preserve all those lovely and always unavailable parts for use or for profit. I have no doubt that another solid-tub Filter-Flo will present itself in time.

Meanwhiles, I continue my quest for the rare turquoise Empress 30