Back in May, I got the call from a fellow collector near Trois-Rivières that if I wanted a 1957 Westinghouse L110 Laundromat and its matching D110 dryer, that I was first in line.  I rented a truck and got them! 

Full story on the machines - the Laundromat was found by none other than our own Jon Charles a number of years ago.  The machines came from a nearly-blind little old who had them from new and used them regularly.  He noted that the washer needed new bearings but never got around to replacing them.  Jon moved and the machines wound up here in Canada; I had a chance to get them twice before and passed both times; when my third chance came up, I jumped on them.  

So the Westy L110 got relocated to Ogden... 

I was completely comfortable with the prospect of working on a Slant-Front Westinghouse washer - I rebuilt an L5 and the CLB6 that I still have.  

However, experience has taught me to always do a thorough evaluation of a machine before tearing into it.

A wise move.... 

The Westy seemed to be in pretty good shape

But there had been a couple of boo-boos in transit....   Didn't seem like a big deal. 

I knew I was going to have to take out the entire washing mechanism to replace the bearings, so away I went!

That's when I found this 'surprise'....  I believe this was caused by the tub rubbing on the support arm (sans snubber).  I wasn't worried, though!  I've patched Laundromat tubs before.  

Taking the tub apart was the next step.  And this is where the real fun began....  

First off, the tub seal gasket was shot to hell.  It had been patched over the years but showed signs of leakage and the inner tub lip was rusty.  I could deal with that.  

Now all I had to do was slip the wash basket out of the outer tub.   Yeah, right... 

That tub was stuck but good.  I think it had fused to the old bearing.  

I kid you not, it too me three weeks to get that sucker out.  I used heat, penetrating oil, and finally, brute force...  I got the wash basket out at last, though!

Pounding out the old bearings only took me two weeks....  Eesh!

Reinstalling them was a piece of cake, though.  Much faster than a Whirlpool... LOL 

Once the bearing was done, I knew I'd need to devise a new seal for the inner and outer tubs.  I found a near-perfect material at McMaster-Carr - except they would not ship to Canada and due to the Canada-US border being closed to non-essential travel, I couldn't have it shipped to my PO Box in Vermont.  So, with the assistance of Mr. Jon Charles again, I had the order sent to him and he then forwarded to me in Ogden.  That slowed me down a couple of weeks...

While waiting for the gasket, I cleaned up and solidified the lip of the inner tub.  Everything got a coat of POR15 and some boosting from a coat of JB-Weld.  And yes, that tear in the tub was pretty easy to fix.  

After some creative gluing,  the improvised tub gasket looked great! 

While waiting for the gasket, I knew I had to do something about the Laundromat door.  The gasket between the inner and outer doors was shot to hell and had leaked over the years.  It had rusted the bottom of the outer panel!

Fortunately, Jon had provided me with a spare dryer door and I was able to use the outer front door panel.  For the gasket, I had to do some improvisation.  A u-shaped gakset beefed up with blue RTV silicone was the 'solution' - not pretty but it seemed water tight!

So, after the gasket arrived and got reinstalled, it was time to reassemble the tub and water-test it... Would it pass??   Oh yes!! 

Then the real fun began - getting the tub and mechanism back together.  It SHOULD have been easy enough, but no...

I had some fun trying to line up the counterweight plates that led to mucho cursing, but I got them into place. 

It was the drive pulleys and clutch that really drove me up the wall.  I soon realized that the original clutch spring was shot.  Amazingly enough, I found one on eBay thanks to the help of Ben in Iowa.  BUT it took a couple of weeks to get to me...   Once I did get it though, the washer ran and spun wonderfully.  Progress!

While waiting for the clutch spring, I decided to do some cosmetic work on the control panel.  The grey trim paint was scratched up, so I decided to re-do it.  I did a pretty darn good job of blending a match to the original paint!

So, the tub was in the machine, and it was running, technically, so why not try a water test??  

Bah hahahahaha....  

On the first try, I found the pump was binding and not draining properly.  No worries, I was sure I had at least 1 spare!  I popped that in and it just gushed water out of the pump shaft.  I was ticked; I was sure there was a new spare pump somewhere but I couldn't find it.  So I ordered another one from eBay (more on that later...)

Better still, I tried hooking the fill valves up to water..  It leaked badly; I took it apart and cleaned it which seemed to solve THAT problem.  

After that episode with the water valve, I decided to tidy up some of the parts I had not used in this restoration.  That's when I found the NOS pump that I thought I had all along....  I swore some, but installed it and found the leaks from it were no longer an issue.

So... I decided to get brave and schlep the washer into the basement for testing.  

The pump was fine, but water was literally gushing out of the fill flume...   I took the dome assembly apart, cleaned it hoping that scale was just causing splashback, but no... 

So I bypassed it... 

That did it... I finally had the washer filling, draining and NOT leaking! 

I still have a couple of issues though... I have no door switch (original one was badly damaged, so I bypassed it) and the pump drive wheel is noisy as hell.  I guess this is because the drive wheel on the motor pulley is worn...

But the washer is running and I have done laundry in it!  Video proof of that coming soon! 

Excellent work, Paul.  Enjoyed seeing the pics and saga of restoration on FB as well.  You did a really nice job on that panel painting, looks terrific!   You had some real challenges with this one, but it lives again - and the washing looks clean, success! 

Well done!  I look forward to seeing the video! 

Great job Paul!  This shows what can be accomplished when a person is really determined and has a good strong back.

I promised videos of the machine in operation.... sadly, during the filming I encountered a few issues with my 'new' Westinghouse Laundromat and the past few weeks have been hectic as I have moved my father from an independent apartment to one in the Intermediate-Care unit of the residence where he lives.  So, I've not really given this latest machine much attention.  

I had noticed the pump drive wheel was extremely noisy when I was testing the machine and you will hear it grinding in this video.  I knew the wheel (the one mounted on the motor shaft under the pulley) that engages to the pump drive was worn.  I tried applying a coat of Flex-Seal rubber paint to the wheel to try and smooth it out, but it didn't really do much. 

You'll also see this in the video, but as the tub is draining, it stalls... The test-load was not huge either!   However when the spin kicks in, the Laundromat still managed to extract the wash water from the clothes. 

The icing on the cake was that after this unsucessful demo, I noticed the wash tub was full of water within a couple of hours.... that nifty three-solenoid water valve is no doubt at fault. 

I noticed that the tub drops significantly when the clothes load got well-soaked;  I have a feeling that I may be able to correct that by adjusting the tub height and angle.  I will admit that I neglected to do so when I reinstalled the tub mechanism on this machine - I remembered after the fact that I did several adjustments on the L5 I used to have and the CLB6 that is still working nicely.  

The pump noise is really ticking me off, though.  Short of replacing the drive wheel on the motor, is there anything else that I may be able to do to silence the grinding noise?   Knowing that the drive wheel is likely unobtainium, I may just throw my hands up in the air and install an electric drain pump.

I'll be pulling the machine out of service soon... Maybe it's time to swap the '59 Frigidaire Multi-Matic back into active duty (I want to show off the lovely new agitator rings that I got from our fellow member Bud!!)   

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