I just received the washer from some guy, and it worked awesome for three weeks, then it started making a noise during the spin cycle. The noise got louder with every load, so I had to investigate. What I found was the hub nut was loose causing the basket to rub on the bottom of the tub, and the split ring was shrinking, there was metal dust from the split ring all over in the tub and around the hub. So I purchase a new hub washer, split ring, hub nut, and drive bell and reassembled everything. I have a channelocks that fit inside the tub to tighten the hub nut, and had another channelocks on the shaft below the tub to tighten it as good as I could with that. Anyways, it worked for a few loads, then I noticed it getting a little louder in the spin cycle and found that the hub nut had come loose again. I am wondering if there is supposed to be a "key" in the hub that fits into the "split" of the split ring and it was just worn out when the nut first came loose(that is, should I replace the hub?), or do I just need to add some locktite and crank on the hub nut harder with a pipe wrench or something? Can I use a pipe wrench on the shaft under the tub? Also, any ideas on what happened to cause the nut to come loose in the first place? Thank you so much for any help you can offer.
You need to pound on that left hand thread tub nut with a special spanner wrench available on this parts site, will never get it tight with a pipe wrench.
This is the GE spanner wrench. Pretty expensive. We are checking to see if the less expensive Gemline spanner wrench still comes with the GE adapter. Last I heard, it no longer did. I will post an update once we get the info.
Looks like the Gemline / PRO spanner wrench DOES include the GE adapter. It’s about a third of the price of the GE wrench. What do you think, Rich? Will it be good enough?
Good in stock. AP4503397
You might want to post the use of this wrench to get other inputs. I have the identical wrench and found it virtually unusable to remove the usually jamed GE tub nut. Like using a cheap sheet steel socket on a hot water heater element, it’s just too sloppy a fit to get the element out. I use a pro. socket for this and I ground it down to get the best grip on the element.
If you compare the two pictures, you will see the expensive one has precision cut socket surfaces, while the other one has cast surfaces.