Lei

Operating on the washing machine.

***REVISED ON NOVEMBER 10th, 2007***

The Easy Way...

The washing machine broke down. So I called the appliance repairman, set an appointment for the following week, told the tenants to hold off on all their laundry for the next five days or so, and I went off on my weekend getaway.

The Slightly Less Easy Way...

The day before I was to leave for a weekend getaway, I got a call from the tenants. The washing machine had died. I went to the house to look at it and found out that the transmission was seized. What we have is a direct drive transmission on an Inglis washing machine. To get this fixed by calling in someone would run around $275 or so with the weekend just hours away. A new basic model would cost almost double that. So I decided to tackle this one myself in the short time that I had.

Replacing this piece of machinery isn't very difficult. I got some tips from the local appliance parts store over the phone and just did it.

Step 1. Unplug the power cord to the appliance.

Step 2. Turn off the hot and cold water supply lines, then disconnect them from the machine.

Step 3. Open the top lid and remove the cap of the center agitator. Remove the screw inside the top of the agitator with a socket wrench and a socket extension.

Step 4. Turn the whole machine on its side to gain access to the bottom guts.

Step 5. Unplug the white molex connector to the electric motor. Undo the two tension hooks which hold the water pump to the motor. There is no need to remove the two water hoses to the pump.

Step 6. Locate and undo the three screws which hold the transmission and motor assembly to the bottom of the washing machine.

Step 7. Pull out the whole assembly. It should slide out smoothly.

Step 8. Disassemble the transmission and electrical motor assembly. There will be two tension hooks similar to those which held the pump to the motor except these two will be screwed to the body of the motor and are a couple of inches longer.

Step 9. Pull the electrical motor off. In between the electric motor and the transmission is a plastic spider gear assembly which transfers power from the motor to the transmission. If any of these two plastic parts are broken, then replace them too. They are press fit lightly into place.

Step 10. Remove any remaining washers and clips off the transmission shaft.

Step 11. Run to the local shop and buy a rebuilt model giving them your old one at the same time.

Step 12. Run back, quickly and install everything in reverse order.

Step 13. Relax and wash some clothes. Don't forget to clean up the mess you've just made doing all of this.

Staring down the barrel of a gun. In the photo is the transmission with the shaft pointed up. Besides it is the motor along with the two motor attachment clips. The washing machine lies dead on its side in the background.

The rebuilt transmission gear assembly costed $99. Once again our trusty slave labourer/appliance repair person aka myself *cough cough* is just pennies a day. This fix will work for other washing machines which have a direct drive transmission made by numerous brands. There are lots of brands out there but only two or three manufacturers. So clever of them in making people think one brand is better than the other. So this part will work for other Inglis models as well as Whirlpool, Maytag, kitchen Aid, Hot Point, Norge, etc. etc. Even on washing machines costing two to three times the base model. The guts are all the same. You're only paying for the fancy electronic interfaces.

The Not Easy At All Way...

I got a call from the tennants telling me that the washing machine was not working so I went over to take a look to see what was wrong.

The room was dim as the tennants had not replaced one of the flourescent tubes which had blown. Only the other one continued to flicker unable to shine completely. I replaced the blown lamp so that I could look at the machine with good lighting.

With power and water still connected, I tested the machine in all of the different cycles.

At the beginning of the wash cycle, both hot and cold water poured into the tub. I turned the water level to low so that I wouldn't have to wait for the whole tub to be filled before it would start to agitate. It didn't however. No check. I advanced the timer dial to a point just before the rinse cycle and all the water starting exiting out through the hose at the back. So we know that the pump is working properly. Check.

New water then started to fill up the tub for the rinse cycle which was expected but again, when the low level had been reached, the tub would not spin. Instead there was just a noise which sounded as though the motor was trying but not getting anywhere.

I pulled the machine out and removed the hose from the drainage pipe. With the machine lying partially on its side and the power cord still plugged into the wall, I turned the advanced main control knob through the various cycles. I could see the electric motor turning and running the pump on one side but when the spin or agitate cycle came, the electric motor spun but the tub did not rotate. It looked as though the transmission was seized while it whined on and on. I moved closer trying to get a better view when one leg of the plastic coupler between the electric motor and the transmission broke and the sleeve of my right arm suddenly ripped off. Soon my whole shirt was off and entangled in the motor.

The faint smell of smoke appeared along with a spark and a zap. I slipped back onto the floor which was partially wet from water which had leaked from the seized bib taps which feed the machine. From my right hand which was touching the metal motor frame of the machine, I felt a medium frequency vibration travel through my body to my other hand which was planted on the wet floor.

As I laid there on the floor unconscious naked from the waist up and hair sticking out in all directions, the washing machine which previously had been balanced on an angle shifted and fell down on top of me. A few tiny arcs of electricity jumped to the floor and a final plume of smoke formed in the shape of a small mushroom slowly rising to the ceiling of the tiny utility room. The flourescent lights began to flicker when one blew and the room grew dim once again.

Replacing a Switch on the Fuse Panel

In this installment of 'How Do They Do That?' we look at replacing a switch in the fuse panel. Like everything else in my life, things seem to occur in multiples. If something goes wrong in my house, something similar will go wrong at the rental house or even the nursing home as well. At this moment, the fuse to the outlet which is always used for the thirty cup coffee urn has given up at the nursing home. Closer to home is a fuse which supplies power to an electrical outlet just outside the front door. The fuse no longer works reliably so today we are going to replace it.

First off, every house has a fuse panel which controls all the power in the house. If your electrician was thoughtful, he/she would have gone through the painstaking task of labelling each switch to show what they do. If not, well you'll just have to flick each one off and on and see what does and doesn't work in your house. The Stove? The appliances? The outlet in the bedroom? Livingroom? Luckily, we had a nice electrician when the house was built which has made life much easier and can proceed as follows.

To begin, we remove the four screws so that we can take off the upper panel.

Once inside, we have access to the wiring and everything else. Notice that I have not bothered to remove or do anything to the lower panel and switch. No power will go to anything if that large switch is turned off. Normally, one should turn off the main power before doing anything but being the rebel that I am, what could possibly haa....gzzzzzzzz....*thump*

Lying on the floor with a slightly charred screwdriver in one hand and the whole house in utter darkness for the past three hours, Lei regains consciousness. Outside there are people standing on the streets as a Hydro crew arrives to check out the neighborhood power box. A former non-white cat is found lying on the ground in the bushes beneathe the power pole. Its four legs are straight and the muscles have tightened. The shocked look in the cats eyes remain frozen.

"uhhhh...my head hurts....wha...huh...oh...uh.... welcome back folks. Now where was I. Ah yes..."

After loosening the screws which hold the two wires, we can begin to remove the faulty switch. The switch is held in by friction towards the center backbone of the fusepanel. The outside is held in by a tiny hooked feet built into the plastic switch body. Therefore, to remove it, we only need to pull outwards from the center of the panel. I used a pair of insulated pliers to pull on the individual on/off lever. This particular switch can control two separate lines. Notice the two free wires dangling in the air on the right. Also notice the switch directly above and how two wires are connected to it. Take care not to touch them on any of the other exposed wires or metal parts. There's between 115 VAC and 220 VAC which we don't want to play with.

Just for confirmation, we test the fuse with a digital multimeter. I have mine set to test for continuity. When the blue switch is in the on position, power should be able to flow through and the digital display should read roughly '001'. Anything else means that we don't have a proper connection.

First we test one of the wire connectors.

Then the other.

The second one is the faulty fuse. We replace the whole unit regardless with one purchased at the Home Depot nearby. Yet another trip to the big orange box...

Here we have a different view of the old fuse switch with the blue levers.

To finish, we just put the new switch in and follow everything in reverse order. As a test, we go out to the electrical outlet which was not working and plug in some device. And looking back at the first picture, you'll see the reassembled fuse panel with the new black switch in the lower right hand corner.

Note: Some events and a character may or may not be real. One person was harmed in the creation of this blog entry.

Redoing the Bathroom Tile Grout

It's not often that I find myself standing in the bathtub fully clothed and with my shoes on, but today I am. And the shower is on. No not really. Anyways, the grout between the tiles has cracked so I need to fix it.

The first step is to scrape and remove the old and loose pieces of grout. I used a small flat bladed screwdriver to do this. Use one which you are willing to throw away because the ceramic tile will wreck the tip when you are through with it.

Rinse the whole wall with clean cold water to remove all the loose particles. Wipe down with a rag and remove any excess water. This is important or else the grout will not stick. It is ok if the wall is still just slightly damp.

Next we prepare the new grout material. I bought a 4.5kg pack of non-sanded white grout powder. For what I am doing, this package is too big but it was the smallest size available. Because the spacing between the tiles is small (less than 3mm's or 1/8 inch) we use the non-sanded type. For larger gaps and floors, we would have used sanded grout which gives added strength. The powder comes in various colours to suit your preference.

Here we have a picture of the material with our special ancient chinese mixing tool which has been passed down for many generations, a pair of disposable restaurant chopsticks.

Read the instructions on the package for the ratio of water to powder to use. Try to start on the conservative side if you are not sure how much water to add. Otherwise you may end up with too large of a batch or not enough powder to create a batch with the proper consistency.

We have a nice thick paste which does not run when the bowl is held up on an angle and our ancient chinese stir sticks don't drop. Again, just follow the mixing instructions on the package if you are unsure.

The type of trowel you should be using will have a thin sponge or foam layer on it. This allows it to conform to the uneven tiled surface. Put a small amount of the grout mixture on the trowel.

Wipe the grout across the tile gaps at a 45 degree angle and make sure that the material is pushed into the gaps well. Don't worry about excess material. It will be removed later. Repeat at opposite angles if necessary.

After an hour and a half or so, we wipe off the extra grout with a moist rag. Make sure that you do not use too much water. Wipe lengthwise along the grooves for a more even clean up and don't be afraid to press hard. Some excess grout on the tile surface may be a bit stubborn if you left too much on to dry.

Here my trusty slave labourer wipes the wall. Just pennies a day...

And voila! Just a few hours later and its done. There's one more thing which pretty much all would be owners of newly laid tiled bathrooms never get, and that is that the grout can be sealed. Or rather, it should be sealed. It's a liquid which you put on the grout to prevent moisture, mold and anything else from getting in. Grout is a porous product so with daily use in the shower or on the floor, dirt and moisture can get in and and eventually weaken it. Just go to your local home renovation store or tile shop and ask for it.

Your new grout should also be sprayed with a fine mist of clean cold water periodically for the next three days. Therefore, the bathtub should not be used either. This is required for the grout to cure properly to its maximum strength. The grout will shrink a tiny amount and may crack or even split if not done so. This is also similar to concrete. Yes concrete may look tough but concrete itself requires 28 days before it fully cures properly.

Now I must leave you as I have another bathroom wall to do...

Fixing A Front Loaded Dryer

When my photographer friend goes to a site and has to wait for some clouds to clear or the sun to come out before he shoots pictures of the mountains, he becomes bored and the attention of his camera points elsewhere. And when you're in the middle of the wilderness, what else is there to shoot but things on the ground like a flower or a bush.

So when I have nothing to write about, I fill in the space with impersonal, dry, yet educational and informative documentaries of my own. Kind of like the late night television which no one likes to watch. Hence, I give you...

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Does your clothes dryer ever make a really annoying high pitch squealling noise? Ours does. So much that you can hear it outside the house. Everyone knows when we're drying clothes. Again, to save ourselves the hassle of calling an appliance repairman and paying the bill, we can take this standard front load dryer apart and look for the problem ourselves.

The appliance is a standard so-called heavy duty front loaded dryer made by Norge. Or rather I should say Maytag. This dryer design is common regardless of what brand you buy. In fact, there are only a few actual manufacturers of most appliances. They just produce them with different brand names creating the illusion that you the consumer have many to choose from.

First unplug it from the 220volt AC supply unless you want to risk electricuting yourself. Then we kill the dryer by stabbing it with a knife. No. Just kidding. Don't do that. If you already have, then don't feel bad because it wasn't alive in the first place. The top lid is usually held down by two large spring clips. All you have to do is slide a thin but rigid object into the gap and press forward on the clips. There are two total, one on the left and the other on the right. And yes, we use Bounce fabric softener. Again I was not paid for that product placement.

By lifting up, the lid should open. Here you can see the clip on the right which I pushed against.

With a flat blade screwdriver or a small socket driver(1/4" I think), you need to remove two screws at the inside of the top front corners on both sides so that the front panel and door assembly can be removed.

There is also the door open and close sensor switch which must be unclipped from the back of the front panel. It is held in by two shiny spring clips.

Remove the front panel by pulling the top towards you. The bottom rests on two clips which act as hinges so that all you have to do is lift the front panel up and it will come off.

This is what the the dryer looks like when the is lid up and door off. Notice on the inside of the lid, there is a drawing of some sort on it.

This drawing contains the electrical schematic, timing diagram and instructions for the operation of the device. We need only be concerned with the diagram of the drum and belt system.

Looking down on the machine, we see the drum and supporting frame below.

Upon closer examination we see the first sign of failure. This leather friction strap is not in its proper location. we find it just hanging off the side instead of against the drum.

To fix this, we need to move the drum out of the way. First we need to remove the belt which runs around the drum. With the diagram showing how the belt is situated underneath, we blindly put one hand into this opening and pull the belt off the idler pulley. You can barely make out the shadow of the belt and pulley underneath here.

Grabbing the inside of the drum, we rotate it and pull out towards you at the same time. The back of the drum is held up by two rollers shown near the top of this photo. It's pretty empty in there and shows you how simple the whole thing can be. You can see how the belt which raps around the drum is fed through the pulley system. On the bottom right is the motor and the long top going to the back is where the damp heated air is exhausted. Between the two rollers on the back wall is the heating element.

This is the orientation that the leather friction strap is supposed to be in. There is this one and another one on the left which the front of the drum slides and rotates on.

The strap properly installed. This is necessary because it helps to keep the outer drum surface from getting worn down and conversely, it prevents the pad underneath the leather strap from getting worn out. Together they help to keep the drum suspended properly.

Next we look at the idler pulley behind. That metal arm is spring loaded, always pushing the plastic round idler left. To release tension on the belt, we had to push the pulley arm towards the right before sliding the belt off.

The idler arm bends to a horizontal position and a journal bearing(no rolling balls like in a ball bearing)is all that is used to allow the plastic idler pulley to rotate as the belt is driven by the motor. This is what causes the drum to rotate so the wet clothes can be tossed around for drying. This is also the source of the annoying noise. I put some high temperature bearing grease to lubricate the journal bearing and get rid of the noise. Some time down the road it may need to be replaced completely but for now, the grease will do.

Before we put things back together, we look at the front door panel assembly. We sometimes need to clean out the cavity starting from the large round hole to the plastic mesh which holds the lint screen. This keeps the air passageway open for maximum drying efficiency. Be careful when cleaning this out. There might be alot of lint particles floating about during this process. It's a dirty job but someones got to do it...

Another thing to check is the plastic turbine opposite the large round opening back on the machine. You can simply use your hands to rotate the turbine to see if it is loose. Plus check to see if there is any lint built up inside. The turbine was shown in the photo where I first held out the leather friction strap.

To put things back together, we start with the drum. It must be rotated while being held against the two wheels at the back. The drum will fall into place and the front will rest on the two leather friction pads. Everything else goes back in reverse order. Happy drying!

We now return you to your regular station broadcasting.

Fix This Replace That VI - Re & Re Copper Pipe

I just read an article on Netscape called the type of men women look for. It said that the majority of women looked for a guy who was dependable and spent most of their free time working on the house or something to that effect. Seeing that article was somewhat coincidental given what I had in mind for this blog entry.

After work, I went to Home Depot to pick up some parts before heading off to the nursing home. Winter is over and we need to be able to water the garden. The problem is that the pipe to the outside tap or bib was broken. During the winter, the water was left in the pipe outside of the house. When it froze, the ice ruptured the elbow joints at the bend. And so to avoid calling in a plumber and paying sixty plus dollars per hour plus inflated prices for parts, we can purchase everything we need for roughly eighteen dollars.

Today we are replacing all of these ruptured elbow joints. To begin, we need a few things.

The propane torch is used to melt all the welded joints. Operation is easy. Just turn the knob and light the gas at the end of the copper burner. You can hear the gas coming out as it makes a small hissing sound so you'll know if it is empty or not.

The small dark thing around the 1/2" diameter copper pipe is a pipe cutter. That is the typical diameter used for the pipes in a home. Sometimes it is increased to 3/4" diameter for larger houses with more washrooms and/or kitchens. If you can make it out, there is a small knob on the right side. When you tighten the knob, the tiny round disc sandwiched between the two round lobs on the left cuts into the outer surface of the pipe when the whole thing is rotated around the pipe. After one or two rotations you tighten the knob on the right until it is snug around the pipe again. Then you rotate it around the pipe in either direction again. This process continues until the disc has sliced its way through the thin wall of the pipe. Copper is a soft metal which is why this can be done with such a small and simple tool.

The pasty stuff in the round tin is called acid flux. Next to it is a small roll of solder or weld joint material. In front is a new ninety degree copper elbow with a piece of new copper pipe inserted. The small piece is used to connect two pipes inline and with the same diameters.

Some other things which would be handy are a pair of pliers to so you can grab hot things without using your hands and thick leather work gloves.

Before beginning, you have to make sure that there is no water inside the pipe. Water is a very effective coolant and you could use all the propane gas you want, you'll never melt the joint. So with the water drained from the pipe, we can sometimes just reheat the old joint and pull the old parts apart relatively easy. Other times it isn't so easy. Even after using the pipe cutter to cut one end of the old assembly so that we have something to grab onto, I couldn't force the old piece off at the same time that I applied heat to it. I ended up cutting off the who assembly.

Here's the offending part alongside its replacement. Notice the degree to which the old copper elbow has ruptured. Remember that ice does expand and the soft copper is not strong enough to resist it. The new elbow is different. The old one is not meant for outdoor use. In fact the whole assembly isn't either because you usually use thickwalled galvanized iron piping. I didn't perform the original install. The new elbow is a cast piece instead of a drawn out thin walled tube. The cast piece has a thicker and stronger wall so we shouldn't have as much problems with it in the future.

The pipe is located in a three foot tall space under the front porch floor. So to make things easier, we weld some of the parts together prior to the final assembly with the rest of the system. Here's where I could have used an extra set of hands. Balancing the assembly on a rock against a post I carefully fed the solder from the left and applied the torch to the joint while taking the picture at the same time. Note that before I put the pipe into the elbow, I smeared the acid flux paste on the pipe end. I apply it everywhere the outer surface of the pipe touches the inside wall of the elbow joint. The flux serves two purposes, to temporarily hold the two parts together and to make the solder material bond to everywhere the pipe is closest to the mating surfaces. Without it, the solder would just melt off the rod, temporarily form a small bead on the pipe before rolling off the joint and onto the ground. The spot on the rock is the flux which has melted off and dripped down.

Sorry about the focus. It's just a camera phone with no macro capabilities. The finished preassembly is shown. If you look carefully, you can see the silver line at the seam where the pipe meets the elbow. The flux also helps the solder to flow into the tiny space between the two surfaces all the way around for a nice clean finish.

Some flame here and a little bit of solder there, and the whole thing is done. Voila! In total we installed about two feet of new copper pipe and three elbows. The coupler was also used and can been seen in the photo close to the left of the bottom elbow.

All this to supply water to the outside bib for the lawn and garden. Oh and don't forget to turn off water to the pipe and drain any water left in the exposed pipe during the winter...

Re & Re 8" Subwoofer

Not too long ago I found a subwoofer box for my 8" Rockford Fosgate speaker. It isn't very popular as most people want at least 10 inches or larger models. I bought it because of space constraints. This is what the existing installation looks like.

I hand made the custom black panel which the speaker was mounted on. It was sized to replace the original Toyota access panel hidden underneath the jumper seat. The cavity used to be a storage area for the wheel jack and tool kit. Behind the passenger side is another jumper seat with another small access panel to another storage cavity. Both the left and right cavities are connected to each other by a small tube like opening. I theorized that this opening acted like a port in a ported subwoofer box. As a result, the setup was able to reproduce the really low frequencies one would expect of a ported design.

Inside the walls are only made with semi-corrugated sheet metal typical of the cabin shell. In order to make this space more useful as a speaker box, I had to put many layers of the black tar like undercoat material. Then I added a sheet of Dynamax vibration or sound deadening material. The idea is that because the walls are not rigid enough, we need to cut down the amount of sound being reflected from the inner walls and back at the speaker to provide as much clean sound as possible.

I used 5/8" thick MDF board which is thicker, heavier and much more dense than what some people would use. The speaker can take 200 watts rms and is rated up to 400 watts so it's pretty hefty. It'll out do many of the larger entry level subwoofers on the market which generally have smaller voice coils, magnets and stamped metal baskets despite the larger overall diameter of the woofer cone. Here we have a rear view of the speaker still mounted on my custom panel removed from my truck.

The new speaker box is made for an 8" subwoofer. This is the only one I have seen ever and at $7.99USD, I could not pass this up. In fact, I could not build this box for that price given the material and time needed. Most boxes would cost five to ten times as much to start.

On the right is the new box covered with a decorative felt material for esthetics. Inside the walls are lined in foam. There are indents on either side for carrying the box and on the rear is a plastic housing with two cable hookups. They are able to take banana plugs or bare heavy gauge wire. I use 14 gauge good quality pure copper speaker cables. They're not the cheapest but not the most expensive. Lets face it, if I want to pay $12 per linear foot for Monster Brand speaker cables, then I might as well shell out the dough and buy the larger speaker and a custom built ported or band-pass box. There were a couple of things which I didn't like about this box and that was that the cable connectors were not copper or gold plated for the best conductivity and the wood used was only 1/2" particle board. 1/2" thick MDF board would have been better. Still for only $7.99... I can't complain.

This new setup is a sealed box design as opposed to my pseudo-ported and larger cavity/box design. The sound reproduction is generally more linear, louder and much more defined especially in the 100 - 250Hz range. What I will lose out on is the resonating effect of the port for extending the 45-150Hz range. The ideal setup to cover the whole range would be to have both types in a double speaker enclosure.

I didn't bother screwing the speaker in directly. Instead I just used the four plastic brackets which came with the box. They are ok for testing but ultimately, I will have to use mounting screws all the way around like I did before. With this much power and vibrations, any little space or unfixed part will become audible in the form or an annoying rattling noise. Just walk up to any car outfitted with subwoofers in the trunk and listen for the licence plate to make a really loud rattling noise or even inside the car. Any piece of loose panelling will do the same.

I drove around for a while playing different CD's. The difference was quite noticeable between this new box and the old cavity box. Higher definition in the upper range but less boomy in the lower range. Another thing to note is that it is always better to have an amplifier which can put out as much power as the speaker can handle if not more. The reason is that you should get more 'clean' power being applied throughout the full range avoiding distortion. Another reason is that in order to push the lower frequencies, you need more power for good clean sound. We don't just want it to be audible. The amplifer also has a direct connection to the power cable with its own inline fuse. We're pulling more juice so we can't rely on the power from the existing power lines in the truck.

While driving around, I tried but couldn't pop my ears.