Thread Number: 93373
/ Tag: Vintage Automatic Washers
'74 Maytag A107 full restore - hairline damper cracks ? |
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Post# 1180446 , Reply# 1   5/12/2023 at 17:23 (357 days old) by qsd-dan (West)   |   | |
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Sort of a hard call. Other than the crack, it's in fantastic shape. There's 2 on Ebay at the moment. The cheaper one looks like it kissed the base, the other one is $180 which is just ludacris for a used part (a new one was $57). I would run it and keep an eye out for another one or a free machine on Craigslist/Facebook market place to tear down for parts. |
Post# 1180486 , Reply# 3   5/13/2023 at 00:49 (357 days old) by qsd-dan (West)   |   | |
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Post# 1180496 , Reply# 4   5/13/2023 at 07:38 (356 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md)   |   | |
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I can’t tell without actually looking at the object, but those do not look like cracks to me.
Aluminum has funny little mold lines in it, which they don’t polish out because it doesn’t make any difference. I will look at a couple of the aluminum dampers we have laying around at the shop I think they all have those little lines in them In any case I’d go ahead and use it. It’s very unlikely to break. John. |
Post# 1180703 , Reply# 7   5/15/2023 at 21:01 (354 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md)   |   | |
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Interesting findings Nick thanks for all the information. I looked at two Maytag‘s that were in our shop. I forgot to take pictures. They all had similar mold lines in them, but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about as I said before. In the 50 years I’ve been repairing washers. I’ve never seen a damper brake on a Maytag, so I don’t think there’s much risk, even if it did break, it would not cause catastrophic harm to other parts. Maytag used a lot of aluminum since the beginning of the company they had a lot of experience with aluminum, however, aluminum was often not the best material to use in an automatic washers in many cases, a cast-iron transmission for example is much more durable. A much better suspension system is something like the Frigidaire one to 18 where it was all welded together and porcelain enameled , you’ll never see bad damper pads in a Frigidaire one to 18 or in a speed, queen Toploader for that matter. I have seen a number of Maytag where the bolts were loose from the damper and much more often they actually came loose and fell out of the outer tub. It was really not a good design, but they got away with it by using fairly good materials. Thanks for the info. About casting lines. John |