My Kenmore (made by Whirlpool) direct drive washing machine was leaking from pump so I replaced pump. That fix is fine although there are 2 additional problems.
To avoid disassembling the case, I disconnected hoses at rear of washer and placed washer on its back on top of 4 wood blocks to gain easy access to pump. Access is easy.
However, oil drained out of the transmission / gear case. I would like to refill the gear case oil. No instructions though.
WHERE DO I REFILL GEAR CASE OIL? I assume the level is low since some did spill out during repair.
The old water pump was completely rusted to the motor shaft so what should be a simple removal job was more involved. First I stupidly tried levering pump off the motor shaft which caused some deformation of the front motor bearing/seal. It is slightly noisy but still works - at least for now. I decided to run it as is and see how long it works. Might be years. Or I can replace the motor.
A bit of advice for others doing this job though.
If the pump is frozen (rusted) to the motor shaft - which is very likely if the pump has been leaking around the pump bearing seal since older style pumps have an iron impeller which will rust onto the motor shaft:
DO NOT TRY TO LEVER PUMP OFF SHAFT - instead:
remove the motor with the pump still attached. Then force pump off the shaft by placing screwdriver on pump housing and hitting with hammer. Move screwdriver to locations opposite each other to force it fairly straight. This will probably destroy the plastic housing on the old pump (doesn’t matter) and it MAY harm motor bearings but there’s a good chance you’ll get the pump off the shaft with the motor still OK. Worth a try anyway since you’ll have to replace pump AND motor if you can’t get the pump off and there’s no simple way to press the pump off the shaft.
once the pump is removed from the shaft, clean the shaft up with a flat file. remove all rust and corrosion from the shaft, lightly grease it and the new pump will slide on easily. (note: new pump from APP has plastic impeller which is much less likely to rust onto shaft.)
good instructions for working on Whirlpool direct drive washers available at
Wondering if instead of disassembling the gear case it would be possible to lever off the old oil seals, dump some oil in and replace the oil seals with new ones?
That seems easier and it also occurred to me that the oil should NOT have leaked out unless the oil seals were bad. (If not the unit should have been pretty well sealed, right? - unless the case were cracked or the gasket between the 2 halves was leaking - neither seems to be the pronlem though)
For now I’m assuming there’s still enough oil in the gear case since its not noisy. Realize that’s always a dangerous assumption though.
Any advice about e replacing the oil seals and refilling oil at the same time???
My fridge door gasket is blown out at the bottom - the magnetic strip is just hanging out, leaving a gap there…
I can easily get the replacement part but it’s not at all obvious how to remove the old one… don’t want to just rip it off, that’s probably not the approach.
If you open the door and roll the inner must part of the seal away from the inner door panel, You will find a metal strip held in place with a LOT of screws!!! LOOSEN all of the screws and slide the gasket out from under the edge, take your time, its NOT an easy job the first time around!!!
V2K04 That’s real bad advice. The upper nylon gear and pinion depend on oil to prevent overheating. Tranny’s get a lot of stress in worst case situations. In any event you provide no evidence this will work without a bunch of oil drained out.
I have taken a lot of tranny’s apart and see evidence of heat damage.
According to my indoor outdoor thermometer, it is about -25F in there.
The little freezer temp adjuster in the main fridge compartment is jammed with ice and can’t be moved. I’ve turned off the fridge entirely in the hopes I can free this up.
How do I check the defroster?
How do I access the timer?
Is it in the lower rear near the compressor or in some other mysterious location?
Well, yesterday I thawed out the right hand side, found a wooly mammoth and Frankenstein monster embedded in the ice , but there’s still a block on the left hand side, which might contain some important part.
I didn’t replace the shelf or ice tray but I put everything back on the bottom of the freezer section, anticipating the need to go back in… and what’s weird is that it seems much better. Interior temp as measured by my indoor/outdoor thermometer is about -6 to -8F as opposed to between -20F to -30 F previously.
I did see the thermostat clipped onto a tube and just unclipped it and put it back on as I didn’t see any way to test its continuity without stripping the insulation.
So, as a result of doing nearly nothing, it seems a lot better. Does this make any sense? And if so what should be done to prevent the problem in the future? As the fridge is about 12 years old, and this is the first time anything like this has happened, I was pretty sure something has broken.
You did do something, by the sound of it you partially defrosted the unit so it will work until it ices up again. Only time will tell.
Frost on the evaporator coils is normal, heavy ice is not.
The usual first symptom of no defrost is the fresh food section’s temperature rises. This is because the evaporator coils are clogged with ice and the fan can no longer circulate air over them. Eventually the freezer section rises for the same reason.
It is pretty easy to add the oil with the transmission out. Check the fluid level using a small paperclip. The iol should be no higher than the seam of the case and the lower cast iron section. if you increase the level it will just leak out.
— End quote
Any suggestions on how much can leak out and be "OK"?.. I just worked on my in-laws washer and saw the leaking from the vent hole (as it was on it’s back) and probably 1-2 oz leaked out before I cleaned it up and taped over it temporarily…
Thoughts?
Thanks in advance… I’d prefer to not take the tranny out if I can avoid it…
I have one of these transmissions apart and want to replace the horizontal input shaft seal and bearing. I can’t figure out how to remove this shaft. How do you get this out/in?
I have one of these transmissions apart and want to replace the input shaft’s seal and bearing. I can’t figure out how the shaft comes out. How does it?
Our Kenmore Elite washer started tripping the breaker when reaching the rinse/spin cycle.
I ran it through a couple different cycles with no clothes in the tub and it works fine. Once I load it with clothes and re-run it, then it trips the breaker as described. The first time this happened I did smell an electrical hot/burn smell. I took the "dash" apart and found no burnt smell around the timer/function switch. Given the fact it will perform all functions within a cycle while empty I don’t think the timer is the problem.
With it functioning fine without a load of clothes and then tripping the breaker when it is loaded with clothes, am I on the right track thinking the main motor is going bad and can’t handle the stress of the load?
Thanks for any & all replies.
E.
I removed the oil seal from the transmission where the coupler comes out. It was easy. The seal was about 11 dollars on this site. I added more 90 weight oil and put the new seal in. To remove the seal, I just hit it on an angle with a hammer and a flat head screw driver. It tilted to the side. After that it was easy to pull out. I put the new one on by using a hammer and a socket. Good luck.
, but there’s still a block on the left hand side, which might contain some important part.