Thread Number: 15700
lid-lock on Fridgaire TL's 		[Down to Last]

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Post# 263492   2/5/2008 at 21:50 (5,922 days old) by cybrvanr ()        

My next door neighbor gave me their old washing machine. It appears it has a bad seal in the bottom of the tub, as it spills water all over the place, an it appears to be leaking somewhere around the base of the tub.

Anyways, I figure it will be fun just to tinker with, as it's just a BOL junker he bought a few years ago when he first got married (it has subsequently had LOTS of baby clothes and diapers run through it!) I was quite suprised to see that this washer has no spin brake on it. I thought it was a malfunction, but it's not! The tub takes forever to coast down from a spin. Instead of using a spin brake, it locks the lid down while it's running. The timer activates a solenoid that locks the lid. If you want to unlock the lid, it does not unlock until almost 15 seconds after you pull the switch out!

This seemed unusual to me, as I've never seen a washer that does this before. The mechanicals down below seem to all be WCI style, but I can't ever recall seeing a WCI style washer without a spin brake. Is this just a BOL design, or are all the newer ones like this?




Post# 263552 , Reply# 1   2/6/2008 at 09:24 (5,922 days old) by seeitrun2006 (Commerce, GA)        
Lid lock

 This is normal on the WCI Frigidaire washers. It's taken from the old Westinghouse TL design in the sixties. These washers did not have a spin brake. My grandmother had a 1966 Westinghouse TL. On the older models the lid lock was contolled by the timer. The washer wound not spin if the lid was open. During the spin if you needed to get into the washer prior to the end of the spin cycle you simply push in the knob, turn to off and the lid would unlock. Most of the time when you did that the tub would still be slowing down after you opened the lid. My Grandma's washer's lid lock was metal and later on with the build up of rust and soap crud the lid switch would not raise up anymore but the lock still worked. You could leave the lid open and the washer would still spin. Of course my Grandma caught me doing that once and she about took my head off! With the Frigidaire washer the belief is the tub should have stopped spinning before the lid switch unlocks. However the condo we stay at in FL has the Frigidaire stacked TL. The plastic latch on the lid had broken off but still has enough on it to depress the switch for spin. Long story short it will spin with the lid open and the lid switch depressed.

The Frigidaire's also have a neutral drain prior to spin. The old Westinghouse design would spin and drain at the same time.

I hope this helps!

Post# 263557 , Reply# 2   2/6/2008 at 09:41 (5,922 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)        

gansky1's profile picture
The Westinghouse toploaders I've had would have used the same system, but I bypassed the safety switch. The lid-locks on those were a bi-metal type. It took a couple of minutes for the metal arm to cool and contract away from the catch on the lid.

Post# 263601 , Reply# 3   2/6/2008 at 15:15 (5,922 days old) by maytagmark (Galveston,Tx.)        

Our later model 1-18 Frigidaire had one,I think it had the indexing tub,that switch was annoying,The latch part finally stopped working,probably from trying to yank the lid open when it wouldnt release. Mark

Post# 263643 , Reply# 4   2/6/2008 at 19:14 (5,921 days old) by jons1077 (Vancouver, Washington, USA)        
Lid Lock

 jons1077's profile picture
Perfectly normal. My Westinghouse TL machine has the "lock'n'spin" feature. The lid will lock if it's closed, however, the machine does function fully with the lid open. It's not supposed to but I think I was just lucky with this machine in many ways. I'd say it takes a good 30 seconds for the tub to finally stop.

Hope you can fix the leak and get it working because any machine is fun to play with!

Jon


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