The other day, as I engaged with my own personal Ship of Theseus – otherwise known as a 2001 Whirlpool Duet washing machine – I encountered the special frustration of the “special tool”. How often has this happened to you in some sort of mechanical endeavor?
Over the past 22 years, I have spent a considerable amount of time working on this particular washing machine. In fact, it receives almost as much maintenance – both preventative and repair – as any vehicle I own. There are a lot of reasons for this. First and foremost, I’m a cheapskate. I believe that this thing cost around $800 when I initially purchased it in response to having a household with a 3 year old and a newly on the scene infant. $800 was a lot of money 22 years ago, and to me $1200 (which is what it would roughly cost to buy new today, supply-chain willing) is even more money now. Yeah, I know about inflation and the future/past value of money. Still, I find it less expensive to repair this thing than to shell out for a whole new one, so I’m going to keep this machine running until that turns out somehow to be no longer possible.
For the most part, I have replaced nearly every piece except for the outside cabinet, the actual door (I just replaced the door hinge), and the motor. There’s not much more to the machine that that. The thing – like all washing machines – has an electric motor and basically one big moving part. How difficult can it be to keep up with that? Oh, and it’s a mechanical device that incorporates concrete into the basic design. That’s cool. I can work on things that involve concrete…a generally forgiving substance. Although I will note that if one fractures those blocks, that’s pretty much lights-out for the machine unless you happen to find an identical one without a fractured cinder block. The blocks themselves are no longer available. So, I’m especially careful with the cement components of my washer.
As you can see from the photo above, I’ve done my own labeling of various parts to insure quick and accurate reassembly for those times when I’ve reduced it to a pile of parts on the laundry room floor while replacing some bit deep inside the cabinet. I am well familiar with the insides of this machine, as well as most of my appliances, computers, AV equipment, etc.. Over the years, I have accumulated a pretty complete set of tools to address most repair tasks that go well beyond those related to automobiles.
Yes, I am Spicoli’s Old Man.
The task at hand this time was to replace the cold water inlet valve – two solenoids fused to a piece of plastic – because it was sounding strained and buzzy. They get that way after 20+ years of sucking up my well water with its high mineral content. As with most of the parts on this thing, if I haven’t managed to scrounge them from similar (although inevitably newer) machines I find on the side of the road or at the town recycling center, aka dump, I can find my valves on eBay or Amazon. OEM parts are increasingly unavailable or are ridiculously expensive. In this case, I found the cold valve for $15 (versus $80 from Whirlpool direct), and the hot valve was only $18. Even though the hot valve was likely fine, I bought it anyway and figured I’d pm it. That’s how I do things on this washer, hence the Ship of Theseus, and the fact that it’s outlasted by likely a decade and a half most of its brethren (sistren?) that also launched into the world of mechanical servitude on the first week of 2001.
Anyway, the valve replacement looked totally straight-forward. Three hose clamps, two sheet metal screws, and three snap in electrical connectors. I figured that this thing would take about 5 minutes, which put it on the insanely easy end of the washing machine repair spectrum.
That was until I tried to extract the sheet metal screw holding on the cold valve.
This photo shows what I ran into; although it took me more than a few minutes to actually figure out what was going on, since I hadn’t even bothered to pull the thing away from the wall. But after trying every driver bit I had to get a grip on those screws, I eventually maneuvered my phone camera (it was handier than a mirror at the moment) back there and discovered tamper-proof screws.
Whaaattttt?
These mind you on a device that is mostly held together with quarter inch hex-flange self-tapping screws. Dozens of them, in fact. There are a few standard torx head screws inside, but nowhere else on the machine are there security screws. Why on Earth would Whirlpool have put security screws on these two valves that actually cannot be removed (by devoted solenoid thieves?) from the outside of the machine even once the screws are extracted? I’ve thought about this repeatedly in the past couple of days, and the only thing I can come up with is that this was done specifically to thwart or slow down what would otherwise be just about the simplest repair on the whole washer.
Nice job guys.
So, my 5 minute repair now required a 30 minute trip to the hardware store, since I had never encountered the need to deal with tamper-resistant torx screws before. Worse than the time lost is the fact that my $33 repair job had escalated to a $57 job due to the purchase of a special tool for which I have no other need. No other need unless I want to take apart the toilet stalls in the next public restroom I visit. Those too seem to use this style of tamper resistant fastener. I am sure that toilet stalls are designed by the same people in charge of “valves” at Whirlpool.
The Truth is Out There.
This whole ordeal (Laugh while you can, Monkey Boy…I try hard to keep my threshold for “ordeal” rather low) got me to thinking about the need for, and the use of, “special tools”. Aside from my cosplay as the Maytag Repairman, I’ve often encountered special tools in a variety of automotive contexts. To investigate this further, I took a dive into my collection of automotive shop manuals. I may not own all of the cars anymore, but I can’t bring myself to divest of the shop manuals. You know…books.
If you want to believe the manual, and sometimes you just have to believe the manual, work on a car like my current 2008 BMW requires an entire garage of special tools. Above we see six special tools (and a particular variety of Locktite…BMW is all about the specific use of all 31 Flavors of Locktite) specified for dealing with trailing arm bushings. This is a job I sorely need to do on my car right now, but since I have the manual and it has performed its mission of scaring me off from performing the job, I’ve decided to “wait”.
We all know how that goes…and how it will likely end. Yes, I know that there are innumerable YouTube videos and BMW forum posts where enterprising folks have cobbed together alternative special tools out of things found at Harbor Freight and specially-sized tomato paste cans found only in certain small grocery stores in Beruit, Lebanon or Monkey’s Eyebrow, KY (they had a store the last time I was there, but I hear tell it might could be gone). That seems like more than I want to take on over the weekend.
I can’t help but think that special tools have needlessly multiplied as time has gone by, perhaps for reasons not unlike whatever was behind Whirlpool’s decision to put public restroom fasteners on my washing machine.
Here’s the shop manual section for changing roughly the same set of bushings on a 1972 BMW 2500 (Bavaria). Punch them out, and lube up the new ones before smashing them in there. Seems much less fearsome to me. I might even use Dawn dish washing soap instead of poly-glycol. I’m sure that would be just fine.
I bet there is some totally awesome German word for “Dawn dish washing soap”.
My old BMW Bavaria factory repair manual also doubled as a very utilitarian (for mechanics) translation dictionary. There are three pages of this index, and I never did make it through learning the German terms for all 72 section headings. Although I certainly intended to.
Contemporary (to the Bavaria) American manuals also called for special tools, but in fact these tools really did not seem not terribly special.
The end of each chapter of my 1971 Buick manual displays the GM special tools, and frankly these are nearly all things that I have, just without the GM-specific tool numbers. I didn’t get them to service my 1971 Buick. Rather these are largely just things that anyone wishing to work on a car might have. For the most part. I suspect that most mechanics who worked on Buicks in the 1970s had the essential tools or know-how to do the job without the various “special” tools mentioned in the manual. For that matter, I suspect that most mechanics who worked on Buicks at the time had very little need for the shop manual at all…these being the twilight years of pretty much anyone being able to take their car to the guy down at “the service station” to get service done. He may have had one of those Chilton manuals for “American Cars”, but probably he just knew how to get the job done because that what mechanics did.
I’m sure that better mechanics than I have encountered the need for various one of a kind instruments when delving into and rearranging the guts of one vehicle – or appliance – or another. What have you encountered that has prevented you from starting a job; or worse yet, stopped you cold in your tracks in the middle of a job…until you could go get the oh-so-very special tool?
Those things are a pain. Last time I encountered them I resorted to brute force, hammer and chisel as it wasn’t a repair job. The time before (an electric kettle) I actually managed to jam a flat screwdriver in and undo them. I replaced them with ordinary screws and chucked the *insert expletive* annoying ones in the bin.
Those are actually common 6 point tamper proof Torx screws.
Wait until you run into 5 point or 7 point tamper proof Torx!
Or tamper proof 6 sided hex, or tamper proof 5 sided hex and so on…
I have taken a thin dremel cutting disc to cut a slot into those and then used a sharp flat screwdriver to remove them.
Don’t forget about torx plus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torx
Special tools are fun. When I was boat mechanic, 90% of the time I had a workaround. I do still have some special tools rolling around in my tools box from that time thou. A trim cylinder tool for replacing the seals on a hydraulic cylinder, a Mercury outboard power head lifting ring. A few fly wheel pullers and flushing adapters. I know I have a few automotive specialty tools too but the only one coming to mind is the spindle nut wrench for my Ramcharger.
When I worked on boats, I made a few special tools for working on Mercruiser drives. I’ve kept all my boat special tools. Because you never know…
As of late, I rely on YouTube videos when approaching a specific issue.
For my front loading washing machine which failed to drain the tub, I followed the top 5 easy to fix suggestions. Past that, it was a matter of replacing the mother board and sensors which was over $300 plus more work. Since it was January (year end close out), I got a replacement for less that what I paid for the original 10 years earlier. Pass on the special tools.
As for the car, it was YouTube to the rescue again. Broken plastic leaver for the solenoid that locks the rear hatch. Guy on YouTube flashed the replacement part number during the video. Four days later, part arrived and I fixed the locking mechanism that after noon.
As a side note, I have encountered multiple delays with FedEx (package sitting in a warehouse for days) and USPS the best. You would think it would be the other way around.
Yes, YouTube really has revolutionized DIY, and to some extent I think the repair business in general. Pretty much anyone who cares to can figure out what is required to repair something whether or not he/she wants to DIY..and therefore be a better consumer. This, I hope, leads to fewer cases of “needing to change the blinker fluid”.
On the other hand, I think that still the vast number of consumers in this country would rather just replace anything that might require repair than to repair it or get it repaired. But that’s another story.
Yes, when/if the mother board on the washer goes, the washer will probably have to go as those parts (new or used) are getting quite thin on the ground even on eBay. I did that for the dishwasher about 4 years ago, and paid maybe $100 for the board. I suspect it’s over $300 now, and that would be a no-go.
A couple places I worked actually had huge pegboards full of all the factory tools.
Like this one
https://smithmountainmarine.com/services-offered/tool-board-2/
That is cool! Somewhere on the web there’s a video that I saw a while back of some guy who had inherited (?) the shop of a BMW independent mechanic who had walls of those special tools on racks/pegboards that seemed to be official BMW products. I’m sure those tools in total were worth more than most any of the vehicles that the shop serviced.
In my restoration shop I supplied most of the tools and tool boxes. I did this because I could pay my mechanics less in wages as they didn’t need to buy tools, and it also meant that a mechanic without tools can’t go looking for a job elsewhere. [Thanks to my friend Billy Thompson, founder of White Post Restorations, for that valuable idea. – RIP Billy] I also took the tax depreciation for the tools too!
With this arrangement, I had tool boxes everywhere, and we did have the special tool boards as well as boards filled with regular tools [sometimes there could be a rush on such mundane tools as a 9/16″ wrench], but I took it one level further for various groupings of tools.
For example, We had a big selection of A/C service tools. So I created a board of A/C tools that could be taken off the wall and used where the mechanic & car were located. This cut down on repeated trips back & forth to the A/C board when more tools were needed.
My shop worked with the local county school auto shop teachers, and at the end of a school year they would send me a couple of students who had expressed interest in older cars, and they would work with my mechanics over the summer. One of the things I tried to do each summer was to assemble a new tool board. I would ask the students to take the pegboard panel [I bought the panels already painted with a white plastic coating] and begin laying out the various tools, with my mechanics and myself providing advice, but the students did 90% of the final layout themselves.
Once the layout was complete, I had the students take a black magic marker and outline each tool, then remove the tools and infill the tool area with black paint. One of the more gifted students asked me for some lengths of 1/8″ wire. He used the wire forming jig in the machine shop area to make special pegboard clips for hard to hang tools.
Over the years I’ve had a few of these students come back and visit the shop [or contact me after I closed the shop in 2001] and a regular comment was how much the creation and use of the tool boards made, in how they tracked their own tools in the coming years.
As a summer job-corps kid at our local Chevy dealer, I was assigned to fit out the cabinet/pegboard array for the new Sprint.
Wow, needless complexity .
I’ve cobbled up more than a few ‘special tools’ to work on various rigs, I occasionally find them for sale at auto jumbles, if cheap enough I’ll buy the ones I recognize, a few I’ve never used but were too cheap to pass up .
Good on you for fixing it your ownself ~ appliances scare me, I’m always afraid I’ll break some expensive part or not be able to re assemble it properly .
-Nate
I’m really not sure why, but appliances scare me much less than vehicles. I seldom think twice before plunging into taking apart an appliance (or plumbing fixture or some combination thereof). I always throughly ponder vehicle repair before starting…and then second guess myself endlessly.
Back before the internet and feeBay, I needed a special tool to adjust the timing belt on my 1969 Pontiac Lemans OHC Sprint 6 motor [with the rare factory combination of A/C, 4-barrel, and 4-speed gearbox]. The manual indicates it’s very important to use this tool, as trying to set the specific amount of tension can cause severe engine damage if not set correctly. This tool was only used to adjust the belt’s tension, and only on this GM engine.
Calling various Pontiac parts suppliers resulted in comments like “Yeah, we’ve got one, but it’s not for sale, ’cause we need it for our Pontiac’s OHC engine”. None of the Pontiac dealerships in our greater area had one on their special tool board, even with the car in question being only about 15 years old.
I ran a restoration shop and was used to buying specialty tools. I had the phone number for the Kent-Moore Tool Co. K-M made the majority of special tools for the various GM divisions, so I placed a call to them. Yes, they made that tool, but because it was only intended for Pontiac dealer service departments, it had been discontinued and was not available.
Since I was a vendor at the big Carlisle and Hershey antique car events, I delayed the replacement of the timing belt and went looking at the Carlisle event. None of the Pontiac people had one for sale. So the next week at the Hershey AACA event, I put up a big sign in my spaces letting the public know I needed the tool, even providing the part number.
BINGO! A retired Pontiac mechanic said he was sure he had one and promised to look when he got home. I gave him my card, but really didn’t expect to get a call back. He didn’t call back, instead driving back to the flea market the next morning, with the special Pontiac tool in his hands!
I quickly paid him his asking price of $75, and I hid it under the front seat of my Dodge van, wrapped in an old towel. On returning to the shop, I locked that special tool in a file safe in my office, but not before I marked it with a tag indicating what it was used for, and a note indicating it was not to be sold. I considered putting it in my safe deposit box in the bank, but I figured it wouldn’t fit inside anyway.
Used that tool exactly once, and it did make the job a bit easier. It also made me feel better in knowing when I did put the go pedal down hard, the belt would handle the response without problems. I sold the car in the late 1990s and offered it to the new owner, but he didn’t want to spend the $75. So back in the office it went.
Anyone need a special tool for setting the critical tension for the timing belt on a Pontiac OHC six engine?
Bill, your asking price is too low. There is *one* Pontiac OHC6 timing belt tool on eBay right now for $187.50 🙂
Bill, why don’t you write a COAL series? Would love to hear more about some of the stuff that’s passed through your garage….
Thanks for the compliment.
Paul and I have been in discussion on the possibility. Over the last year my computer had a virus that repeatedly corrupted the Curbside Classic site, and this problem has only been recently solved with a new laptop [I hope], so once I’m comfortable with knowing it’s back to normal, it will probably happen.
I’ll just add that I eagerly await a Bill McCoskey COAL.
Great story! Many moons ago, when I was much young-er, I was pretty handy. Could fix pretty much anything, except washers and dryers and kitchen appliances. Never took a liking to those things!
Some tools that were once “special” no longer are.
IIRC, when I went to change out a sealed-beam headlight in Pop’s ’80 Olds 98 coupe, I said to myself, “What the hell?? GM is making me buy a special tool just to change a friggin’ *headlight*??”
It was a (now common as dirt) Torx T10-headed screw. I still have that T10 screwdriver in my toolbox – along with countless other Torx drivers and bits.
I also have a Harbor Freight set of screwdriver tips for all manner of “security” screws. I guess that makes those screws not very secure.
Good point Evan. I kind of feel that metric tools probably fell into that category for a number of American auto mechanics in the late 1960s to 70s. Hence the number of service stations that wouldn’t work on “foreign” cars and the proliferation of “import auto shops”. Eventually, I suppose, the economics of not changing/adding tools and thereby losing business became evident, and nowadays it’s just not an issue.
Today I think your more likely to find a mechanic with a shortage of SAE rather than Metric. I work on Mil spec stuff and it’s almost all SAE but outside of that I think appliances may be the ony new SAE fasteners I see. Even power equipment has moved towards metric.
Funny story at my second marine mechanic job at 19, I first ran into the missing 10mm. In my first job as intern/gopher I worked mostly on older OMC/Merc stuff and 90% was SAE so my metric stuff was pretty basic.
At the new job I was changing a water pump on a newer Merc, and went hey this 3/8 doesn’t fit right. only to realize metric duh, opened the drawer and my 10mm wrench was missing (no clearance for a socket). So I then spent way to much on a snap-on 10MM wrench (and some other tools) off the truck that afternoon.
Jeff,
When I began working on old cars for a living back in the late 1960s, it was rare when I needed a metric tool, and many shops wouldn’t work on “ferrin cars” because they didn’t have the tools, parts, or manuals.
Today it’s the opposite, it’s rare to need SAE or Whitworth tools unless you’re working on old vehicles.
I recently had to get an extra set of keys for one of my cars, and noticed a sign that said Domestic car keys were $3 and up, and Foreign car keys were $5 and up. So I asked what was the difference between Domestic and Foreign cars? and the manager said he really didn’t know.
So I just had to ask a couple of follow up questions: Is my Toyota Camry, built in Kentucky, or my Ford Ka, built in Europe, foreign or domestic? [No answer.]
But I was only charged $3 per key!
If you can’t fix it with a hammer, heat wrench, screwdriver and vice grips find someone who can.
The best source of “will work” tool alternatives is YouTube.
Well then, you may be as big a fan of these Indian (and a variety of other South Asian and Southeast Asian) Mechanics videos as I am. Watching these guys repair stuff like heavy duty truck drivetrains with little more than torches, chain falls, and hammers (usually barefoot) is forever fascinating to me. 🙂
I have watched many of their videos. Compelling but you know there are many accidents.
I have used the Dremel-cut-a-screw-slot metod many times. On a Ford Taurus I broke off a centre pin on a security screw and then a standard Torx bit.
For “special decorative bi-pin screws” with two holes in the screw head, encountered in camera repair, I bend a suitable piece of spring steel wire into a U-shape which then is gripped in pliers to makeshift a “driver”.”
That’s a good suggestion that you and JB have, about cutting the slot. I didn’t think of that. I did think of trying to chisel out the center pin, but this is a tiny little screw and I had nothing that could get in there. Also, somewhere in my head a voice said “You know, if you screw this up, you’re never going to get those things off and your 5 minute job will end up being a 5 hour job.”.
I’ve unfortunately made THAT mistake before…on cars.
Jeff,
Repeat after me:
When working on vehicles, homes, or mechanical devices, the possibility of a small repair is almost always a fantasy!
Wise words, Bill. I suppose I do have a rather rich fantasy life.
As is a job that fails to draw blood at some point in the process.
In the wisdom of a wise man who happens to be my wife’s cousin:
Nothing is easy.
About 20-30 years ago I picked up a set of driver bits at Fry’s Electronics (RIP) that included security bits in both hex and Torx sizes, and a lot of other shapes I’ve never needed. I think I’ve used one security bit one time. As for SAE vs metric, one of my biggest frustrations is aftermarket parts like truck racks or hitches that still use SAE hardware, forcing me to occasionally need a few SAE tools for my otherwise 100% metric vehicles, all of which are made in North America. But I wish I could find parts for our Miele washing machine on the roadside or at the dump. It is heading towards needing its second replacement fill valve and Miele USA doesn’t stock it; I had to buy the last one on EBay from Europe.
I found an entire Miele Callisto (a very nice vac) at the local transfer station last year. Almost as-new condition except for a broken latch on the power hose. This is indicative of the issue I mentioned above, which is how people would rather buy a brand new $1000 vacuum cleaner than spend the $50 it might cost to buy a part (or employ duct tape, as I have). I’ve continued to find various Miele parts at the same place, and now have more attachments than I actually need.
The Callisto has now replaced my God-awful Dyson which I think I will finally give up trying to fix since the damn thing is made nearly entirely of plastic bits that snap together and seems engineered not to suck after a few years (which is quite the problem for a vacuum cleaner). But yes, prior to deciding it simply no longer was worth repairing, I could field-strip that DC41 “Animal” in minutes. Something, which unfortunately seemed necessary every time I tried to use it.
I’ve run across a few Miele washers at the dump, but do draw the line on stripping parts off of appliances that I don’t yet own. Send me your model number though and I’ll keep my eye out for you. 🙂
Don’t get me started on Dyson plastic junk. Worst vacuum cleaner ever, although it is true that it sucks. Our 35 year old Panasonic doesn’t seal well and the cord retractor is weak and the line from the head unit to the beater bar broke open (I rigged up an external line), but it was bit inconvenient to use so we bought a Dyson and relegated the Panasonic to garage/basement duty. The Dyson hasn’t actually broken but the design makes it hard to use: lots of protrusions snag on doorways and corners, the unreinforced hose kinks constantly, and it’s freaking heavy. Makes vacuuming more of a chore than it already is. Our next vac will be a Miele (see attached through-the-windshield Outtake). The washer is a Novotronic W1986.
I have a French diesel car and its not the first one Ive bought so I have a large range of Torx tools, every now and then I find something Ive made in lieu of a secial tool required wrenches bent to get at one difficult bolt.One metric Citroen and an Imperials Hillman mean two tool boxes one for each car and one box of mixed sockets to hunt thru.
My problem is that I usually ignore the special tool and figure that I can work around it. I usually do, but make the job far harder than it should have been. Most recently was when removing the interior sliding-door panel on my Kia minivan. Kia uses a hidden clip to secure the interior door handle (much like GM used clips for interior window cranks). I figured out a workaround that involved threading some wire through the clip then pulling it with vice grips. It worked, but I am glad the vice grips didn’t hit my mouth any harder than it did when the clip pulled loose. There was only a little blood. But the job of replacing an exterior door handle got done.
I am like you on the appliances. I have yet to buy a dryer – between the one that came with my first house in 1987 (and it was probably 10 or 15 years old then) and the second one I was given (that is probably from the early 80s), I have kept a functioning Whirlpool dryer running for the last 35 years. I have been less successful with washing machines, but with simple units like my top-load Whirlpool getting rare, maybe I should plan to roll up my sleeves next time something breaks.
I once had a “special tool” for removing those GM window cranks. In fact, I probably STILL have that tool, but the last time I saw it I might have forgotten what it was for. (which has no bearing on my continuing to keep it)
One of my least proud moments from the past several years was giving myself a magnificent black eye from banging my face on the fender of a car after suddenly breaking the cheap socket I was using on a cheater bar which in turn was being turned (by me) with a 4′ jack handle to gain extra torque (to remove some suspension part). OK…I feel better having gotten that off my chest.
And yes, my dryer is older than the washer (it may be pushing 30 years now…I believe I’ve moved it between houses at least twice). It’s required much less work than the washer as it’s an even simplier machine.
Whirlpool (AKA: Kenmore, Roper, Estate, etc.) dryers and top load washers from are the most reliable and easy to fix machines of their kind. Landlords (like me) love them. I can fix their few issues blindfolded. Parts are infinitely available and cheap.
Sadly, Whirlpool stopped making the “direct drive” washer a few years back, but they’re constantly available on Craigslist or such. The dryer is still being made and sold under a large variety of brands. The key identifier is the lint filter, which is on the top of the machine, on the right side. These are also super reliable and easy to fix.
I bought some new and used ones 25 years ago when I got into this landlording business, and they’re still going strong. The washers have two common issues: the rubber block that connects the motor to the transmission fails, and the water pumps leak. Both are super easy fixes, and dirt cheap.
I’ve also replaced the clutches on some; a bit more complicated, and have even taken the transmission apart.
The problem is that some of my laundry closets are extra narrow and require the compact 24′ version of this washer; these are getting hard to come by. But I just keep fixing them.
Ah yes, Dyson Vacs. There was a time I lived on a farm with multiple buildings, my 3-level home, and my restoration shop, so I used to pick up used Dyson uprights from the local Vacuum repair shop when the owners said don’t fix it, and bought something else.
I ended up with 6 working Dysons and 2 for parts. I found them great for such varied jobs as cleaning out a dirty car that sat for 30 years in an old garage, to sucking up drywall dust, something that usually destroys other vacs. I usually needed to replace the clutch assembly for the rotating front brush, an easy job because I have the special tool set. It’s the most common problem on Dyson uprights.
My girlfriend’s mom loved her brand X vacuum, but a few years ago after she used the “X” on her home’s wall-to-wall carpeting, I brought over a Dyson and she was amazed at how much more dirt and hair it picked up.
However I’m now down to only 2 working Dysons, and the reason why is because Dyson stopped making the clutch assembly, while not allowing other companies to make it. So when my final 2 uprights are done, they will be relegated to doing jobs that don’t require the front brush.
To anyone who is still using a Dyson upright, I find that about once a year I disassemble the main tornadic assembly and load all the plastic pieces in the dishwasher and run it thru a cycle, this cleans out the inside tornadic areas where dust collects, and improves airflow.
Saturn loved to use Torx screws on their cars. When I had my SL1 had to go out and buy a screwdriver with a bunch of different bits, including Torx, just so I could replace a taillight bulb.
I have lots of special tools from my career as a mechanic and home owner. I had a Maytag dryer that needed the gas valve coils replaced every three to four years. A Maytag range that needed the igniters for the oven replaced several times. Various repairs on washers, dryers, water softeners, water heaters, furnace, refrigerators, dishwashers, etc. The only appliance I haven’t repaired is a microwave, most small appliances are just replaced.
The repair I recall was the Amana fridge. The interior light quit working. there was a break somewhere in the wiring. This required emptying the fridge and freezer and then removing the interior of the fridge and freezer. The problem was a two pin connector that had disconnected itself in the back of the freezer area. The cause was the self defrosting feature and the direction that the connector was mounted. Water was running into the connector during defrost and then freezing which pushed the connector apart causing it to eventually loose connection. Clean the connection up and rearrange the wiring and problem fixed, only cost, my time.
Truck, car, RV, motorcycle and snowmobile special tools abound in my tool boxes.
One tool in my box is a spanner socket for Horton fan hubs. First one I had apart used a pipe wrench to disassemble and reassemble. Bought the socket for around $22 I’m guessing around 1980. About six months later got another one in for service, pop that cap of to use my tool and Horton had switched to a rounded off six point nut, well that’s nice, never used the spanner socket, it still hanging out in one of my tool boxes.
Then there is all the special tool wrenches “required” to work on Detroit Diesels and Cummins Diesels. You don’t necessarily need them but I’ll be done long before you and not nearly as frustrated either. If you have ever changed a Cummins air compressor on a 855 engine you know what I mean.
I’m with you on the repair vs replace. Got a maytag dryer my mom bought in’84. 3 plastic fans and a couple of belts (replaced as pm, not broken) is it. Not a single major part replaced. Just did a fan/belt job on it 2 months ago. And parts are still available
I had a top loading Westinghouse washer I bought used from a neighbor years ago. (Westinghouse has just been a name for sale for many years. This was before that.)
Eventually it needed a belt and then one of the water valves. Back then there was an appliance parts store to get them from. Both were pretty easy to replace, although the back of the washer was held on by about 20 screws so an electric screwdriver was very useful. I don’t think tricky screws even existed back then.
A friend had a Whirlpool top loader (a basic design that went on for decades) that needed a belt. The guy at the parts store said they were almost impossible to replace, and another customer chimed in and agreed. So I didn’t try that one. I did take a close look and couldn’t figure out how to do it. So hard to work on items that are also expected to wear out and need replacement aren’t a new thing or restricted to cars.
Recently my sister’s top loading but agitator-less washer (not sure of the brand) stopped letting in the cold water. I described my Westinghouse experience. I think I suggested switching the wires on the hot and cold valves to determine if the problem was the valve, the likely and replaceable culprit. She got a valve for a reasonable price from Amazon and replaced it. Apparently no weird screws involved.
Some things change and some don’t (like washer valves, apparently).
If your (North American) Whirlpool dryer needed a new belt, it was built before 1985 or so; after that they went to a direct-drive motor. Both are well-reputed for reliability, though both have other issues. Belt-drive Whirlpool washers, easily identified by D-shaped openings under the lid, have an excruciatingly slow final spin speed (525rpm IIRC, about half that or less of modern washers) that leaves the water damp and soaky, causing the dryer to take a long time to dry everything. Several Kenmore dryers of that era were built by Whirlpool and has the same caveats.
The friend’s Whirlpool with the hard to replace belt was a washer. I think that design was used for about 30 years. I later saw the same problem on a defunct Kenmore, which I believe were mostly Whirlpools. I’m sure real appliance repair people had some special tool or something to do that job. Anyway with my Westinghouse it was just a matter of looking at it for a minute to figure out.
Most major appliance tales of woe and intrigue these days seem to involve electronic controls which were far in the future at that time. The electronic aids and engine controls on modern cars are great but I’m guessing entire cars will often be tossed when the mechanics still have life in them, kind of like V12 BMWs only because of the parts and labor cost of replacing computer bits and screens instead of mechanical ones.
My previous two microwave ovens died of fried controls after about five years. Fairly high end sensor models of different brands but if anyone actually fixes them I’m sure it would cost more than a new one. Before replacing each one I substituted the same old mechanical dial model street find I kept as an spare.
Not a fan of a throw out society but what can you do (other than legislation requiring recycling etc.)
If you own a Sams—g OTR [over the range] microwave, that includes many “off brands” that are actually made by Sam—g [like Maytag], then there is a quick update you can do to eliminate the #1 failure of these units going back about a dozen years.
Even though this microwave sits directly over your range/stove, which handles plenty of pots containing boiling water over the years, to save a fraction of a penny per unit, Sam—g decided not to add a dielectric grease on the contacts for the main electrical connector. Steam from the cooking process gets into the connector and corrodes the pins, when this happens, the microwave won’t power up at all. Yes, that’s right, electrical connections directly above a steaming situation did not warrant protective grease!
To fix it [new replacement electronic panels have been unavailable for years], remove the screws across the top panel above the door, and then remove the screws to allow the electronic panel’s removal. Once it’s out, unfasten the main ribbon wire connector, clean off the corrosion on the pins of the circuit panel, coat the pins with dielectric grease, and re-assemble. Chances are it will work great.
I also suggest if your unit is working well, when you have the time, go ahead and perform the repair/update, and a future problem is solved.
And if you have a double door Sam—g ‘fridge with a bottom freezer, and it begins to ice up and not defrost, best thing you can do is junk the entire unit and buy a Non-Sam—g ‘fridge. [And NEVER buy a ‘fridge with a TV screen/computer with wifi, as there is zero support after the warranty is up.]
The above advice is courtesy of several appliance repair guys I’ve known as good friends for many years. None of them will service Sam—g ‘fridges anymore.
Do any of your appliance buds work at a big indie appliance vendor/repair firm in Beltville, MD? I’ve had them in twice to fix menial problems on a Whilrpool fridge and a GE microwave (this one made by LG, not Sammy). They refuse to even work on a growling list of popular brands, leaving only the old-line US-made models (not sure if that includes GE (Haier) or Frigidaire (Electrolux) or other all-American names now owned by foreign companies). They also don’t fix Bosch dishwashers, which are common as dandelions and easy to fix – the culprit in >90% of dead ones is the electronic control board going south. I’ve never seen one with any other ailment; the mechanical parts work flawlessly. As for my ’90s Miele dishwasher (which is spectacular), I’ve repaired it twice using easy Youtube explanations. Likewise with my Miele 220v washing machine. I may be in trouble if my Spanish-made Fagor oven fails – they went out of business a year after I bought it. Fortunately, it’s worked pefectly so far.
Oops, meant belt-drive washer not belt-drive dryer. Whirlpool used belt drive in their top-load washers through the mid-late 1980s then switched to a direct-drive design. Both are often seen as Kenmore branded.
Before the internet washing machine parts were often ridiculously expen$ive ~ I no longer remember the brand of my American made washer but the water pump eventually began to leak so I looked up the dealer and took the model number, they wanted $75 for a small plastic water pump ! .
This was in the mid 1980’s and a cast iron Chevy water pump was less than $35 , the guy said ‘too bad mac, either you want it or go buy a new washer for $350 .
We had a power surge last weekend (actually a whole series of them) that knocked out the A/C and ice maker in my Sweet’s house ~
It’s a General Electric Model GNE25JMKFES made in Mexico, the ice maker is in the bottom and dumps into the slide out drawer ~ anyone know what I should look at first ? .
TIA,
-Nate
I have a Kitchenaid fridge that looks pretty much the same as your GE, fron the outside at least. Ice maker also dumps into a bin in the slide out bottom freezer compartment.
There are 2 parts that could be at issue here. One is the valve (not unlike the one on my washer) that controls the water to the icemaker. I suppose a power issue could have taken that out. The other is the icemaker unit itself (but that’s mostly a motor, and is less likely to have been killed by a surge). The icemaker unit can generally be sourced for about $50 and is held into the freezer by a few bolts. The biggest challenge there is the contortionist moves necessary to get your arms and head in there to r/r the thing. Removing the sliding freezer drawer – which would seem to be the obvious move – is crazy complicated.
You need to listen to the machine and try to figure out if the ice maker is still cycling, but not getting water (that would be the valve) or if it’s not cycling at all, which would be the ice maker unit.
Full disclosure, I am dealing with a funky ice maker on my fridge now. The big timing gear that responds to the sensor bar that says to make ice or not make ice has either broken or jumped timing…and hence the thing can only be controlled manually. So far (uh, nearly a year…) I’m doing the manually thing since I haven’t wanted to spend the $50 to buy a new ice maker unit, or to take the thing apart to fix the timing gear.
THANK YOU Jeff ! .
I don’t think I can do the necessary contortions with my broken spine and neck .
The cold water thing still works just fine .
Do I have to take the entire ice maker out to see / access the valve ? .
-Nate
If the cold water thing still works, the valve is probably ok…so what’s probably not ok is the ice maker unit itself.
https://www.repairclinic.com/ProductDetail/2151663
Here are the OEM parts that are still available for your fridge. You can see the ice maker on the list about half way down the page. $135 isn’t too bad (if you like ice), but taking that part number – WR30X35285 – I was able to find it for $50 used and around $100 non-OEM on eBay. Like I said, the hardest part will be bending down low and getting your arms inside the cabinet to remove the two sheet metal screws and a few connectors (one electrical and one water) to remove and reinstall. There are surely Youtube videos out there explaining most of the process.
Good luck!
THANK YOU JEFF ! .
Now I begin to understand how folks feel after I awaken their old jalopy from slumber .
Of late I’ve had several good outcomes of me tinkering with things, my Sweet seems to think So. Cal. Edison will come out and fix it or pay for it (?!?) but I have saved this site to my house repair files .
I don’t look forward to taking it out, maybe I can remove the entire sliding door and scrooch in there…..
When I travel I’m often told to drop on by for a good night’s sleep and I usually take the inlet water screens out of their washing machine and clean it, and / or soak the clogged shower head in white vinegar overnight so I don’t have to run around in their shower to get wet…
I always get invited back .
The help I have received here over the years is priceless ! .
-Nate
I used to deliver/install appliances for a couple years, and instead of worrying about removing the lower drawer or contorting yourself, most likely four 1/4″ or Phillips screws will drop the front panel of the drawer. MUCH easier.
@jgvt88 :
(walks out to kitchen and opens freezer drawer, looks inside at easily accessible Phillips screws)
Dang ! why didn’t _I_ think of that ?! .
It looks a lot easier now, I’ll have to go home and fetch my Beckman multi-meter .
-Nate
As a side note, I moved to an all electric apartment in the mid 90’s. I swapped my polar white Sears Kenmore gas drier for an Avocado green Westinghouse electric dryer. I suspected it was assembled in the mid 60’s. It ran just fine till the motor burnt up one night. No fire, but the smoke alarm in my unit went off.
Only household garbage was allowed in the complex dumpster. However, I was familiar with the pick up schedule. Just after the most recent pickup, we dumped the dryer in the cover of night and threw some garbage on top.
A friend had a Whirlpool top loader (a basic design that went on for decades) that needed a belt.
These basic Whirlpool (and Kenmore) washers did not have a belt; they were called “direct drive”, and the motor connects to the transmission directly. I have numerous ones in my rentals; they are they easiest washers to fix and keep going indefinitely.
It must have been something else.
Paul, Whirlpool did use a belt in their top-load washers until 1987 (according to the ‘net). I’ve definitely come across several; they’re distinguished by usually dark upright control panels, a top that opens to a D-shaped opening (flat in back), and a very slow final spin speed of about 525rpm that leaves clothes unusually moist (resulting in many service calls for machines that were working as designed). The top-load Whirlpools arrived with a somewhat faster spin speed of about 625rpm – still rather slow. These washers had fewer parts and were easier to service, and were sold for decades, some in commercial laundry rooms with coin chutes. Many belt-drive washers are still out there. Newer machines usually spin a 1,000rpm or higher to reduced time in the dryer as well as wear on the clothes.
Here’s a repair manual for pre-direct drive Whirlpools and Kenmores showing the built install and remove. Both belt-type and direct drive were reliable machines.
https://www.applianceaid.com/replacing-belt-drive-washer-belt.php
I buy the cheapest washing machine I can find online – when it’s buggered I throw it away and buy another one. They usually last about 7 years.
Buck ;
That sounds good to me, what brand & model ? .
Ever try a stacked washer / dryer combo ? .
TIA,
-Nate
Most recent one is a “Beko” – a cheapo brand sold in the UK. Never tried a combo.
Yah, let’s talk about special tools! Apple thought they’d be cocky; cute, ‘n’ clever (shocking, eh?) and use a special screw to put their machines together. They’re called Pentalobe screws, and they’re sort of a 5-rounded-pointed-star variation on Torx. The bottom cover of a MacBook Pro like my 2015 model is held on with them, and I think they’re also used in iPhones and probably other Apple hardware. One of the main reputable non-Apple sources of repair parts and upgrades include a Pentalobe P5 driver with whatever you might buy that might need access, such as a 2gb SSD to replace a 500mb spinning hard drive. So I have at least one of these P5 drivers and therefore don’t need to avail of the kits of Philips or other conventional-head replacement screws.
But wait, there’s more! A few years ago, in an attempt to stop (or lower) my loud-enough-to-cause-sore-throat-and-family-strife snoring, I got a mandibular advancement device from my dentist. It’s a 2-piece mouth plate moulded to fit over my upper and lower teeth and move my lower jaw forward. The upper and lower pieces are removably held to each other by a sort of clamp which fits over and slides along a transverse metal bar, so my lower jaw can move sideways. The two pieces of this clamp are held together by a screw with its head facing forward out my mouth. Turning this screw adjusts the position of the lower part versus the upper part; i.e., how far my lower jaw is moved forward. Not enough, and there’s still too much snore. Too much makes a sore jaw joint.
My dentist is across town, and going back and forth to get the device adjusted by a turn or two of the screw with the special proprietary hold-in-the-hand “key” quickly grew tiresome. That was solved in a hurry when I looked a little closer and noticed that special proprietary “key” is…a stubby Pentalobe P5 driver. Voilà, no more crosstown hassle! Two special tools for the price of one.
Wait a minute…your dentist clamped something on to your jaw that requires a special key to adjust? That seems positively medieval. Or Victorian…or just kind of kinky.
I hope I’m understanding that it’s about adjusting, and not removing…
Ah yes, the Pentalobe. I know it well and have a whole set of those bits, drivers, etc. They were introduced by Apple to keep people out of their phones. BAH! No one keeps me out of my phone, MacBook, etc. Nintendo did something similar with the “tri-wing” screws on Gameboys. As the father of 2 Gameboy-playing guys…you can be sure that I also had a number of those special tools just so that I could change the batteries in the damn things.
Anyway, it’s good that I know I can also adjust dental appliances should the need ever arise for that.
No, it’s just a particular kind of night guard/mouth plate. I put it in and take it out at will, just by popping it on or off my upper and lower teeth.
I own a set of Pentalobe drivers. I don’t need to tell anyone what I bought them for. Hint: I’m not a dentist.
Admit it: you bought them to adjust the dwell and tappet clearance on a very, very small engine.
About 16 years ago I gutted and remodeled the kitchen and dining room, gutted to the studs and took out a wall, replaced all 4 Kitchen appliances and new washer and dryer, all Maytags. The only survivors, the range and microwave. The dishwasher racks were falling apart at two years and no parts were available. Motor burned out in the washer and took the control board with it. The dryer made it the longest, control board smoked. The fridge was the only one that got booted even though it worked. The wife hated the fridge, the first side by side. I was going to put it in the garage but to much stuff in there already.
The weirdest one was a washer we had bought back in the early 80’s. Don’t remember the brand anymore but it was a brand built by Maytag. Anyway it was a top loader and you couldn’t keep the damn thing from wobbling around the utility room. One day it up and quits with a bit of burning elec smoke. Its not even a year old. I popped it apart and found some wiring rubbed thru on the transmission below the tub. The wiring was poorly routed. I was really pissed about it. I called the company and told them my problem. I was going to really unload on them. However the customer service people derailed that plan. They sent me a new motor, new timer and new wiring harness. That washer served us well until the tub rusted out many years later.
Last item, I bought a new furnace for my first house in 1980. Got a 94% high efficiency gas furnace from Montgomery-Wards. There was a recall about a year after the purchase, the condensate in the exhaust was rotting out the exhaust piping. The recall replaced all the exhaust with stainless steel piping. Good. Fast forward about a year later, its 20 below in Minnesota and my furnace quits. I do a quick check and the pressure sensor in the exhaust is not picking up an exhaust fan running. I found that the furnace used a plate with a hole in it on the output side of the exhaust fan to create a pressure differential that the sensor would use to confirm the fan was working. The plate they used was made of aluminum an the exhaust condensate had ate away at the plate until the hole got big enough to lower the pressure differential.
I bypassed the sensor to get the furnace running. The local Monkey-Wards wouldn’t look up the part for me over the phone. I called their 1-800 number and they wouldn’t give me the part number until I got a supervisor on the phone. Finally got the number and called around to the different Monkey-Wards stores until I found one that had it in stock. Great, get the part, install and make plans to make a stainless steel one later. Then about ten days later I get a new blower motor, gaskets and orifice plate in the mail, from Chicago. What the ??????? I had told them my name, etc and that I had registered the purchase so somebody somehow decided I ordered these pieces. Boy the internet has sure made some of these problems easier to handle.
Your experience illustrates the importance of persistence. Or at least taking the time to follow up on the performance of a product with its manufacturer.
I had something similar happen with the Whirlpool washer featured here. When it was relatively new, we had the local repair guys come out and take a look at it for some issue or another. The determination was that there “might” be a problem that Whirlpool would address if we took it up directly with the manufacturer. Otherwise, the local repair guys were glad to charge us nearly the full price of the washer to repair it, OR we could (much pressure in this regard) just buy a new one. A call to Whirlpool resulted in their shipping us a new inner and outer drum (which included the prone to failure bearing)…with the request that we pay about $500 to the local repair guys to install it. Well, since the drum seemed fine to me, I stashed the OEM parts (in 2 ginormous boxes) and proceeded to wait for about 10 years before the original parts seemed to be failing. I then installed them myself, and probably have another 15 years before the bearing and drum fail again. But if we hadn’t been persistent in getting the (free) replacement parts from Whirlpool, we’d surely have had to dispose of the machine before now.
I do realize that all of this is much more than the average person would go through. But I really cannot abide throwing things away that could otherwise be repaired.
I worked with home renovations when this dryer was new; the innards are mostly widely-used Whirlpool dryer parts little-changed for decades and were built in the U.S., but the matching-look washer was a new design built in Germany, the first of Whirlpool Corp.’s oversize residential front-load washers. The washers and dryers needed a different tool kit. Customers complained that the paint and plastic trim on their (German) washers didn’t match the color of their (American) dryers. There were some issues with vibration during the spin cycle on the washers, especially when placed on wood floors one or two levels up. Older machines in the US were more commonly “Y-axis” top loading washers which spun more slowly and vibrated left and right rather than up and down. After a few years Whirlpool improved the damping so they wouldn’t shake up your house when spin-drying your clothes.
I had one of those German-made Whirlpool Duet large front-load washers. Bought in 2009; sold in 2019, with not a single hiccup or problem. It was among the best appliances I’ve ever had.
I usa a Dyson V8 for my main house vac and can’t say enough good things about it. Super strong, reasonably quiet, controls made by someone who sweat the details, easy cleaning, herculean strength, yet lightweight to lift. Now several generations old so affordable through the company’s or eBay’s factory Dyson refurb Store. The sell vacs with a factory warranty (which I’ve never needed). Lots of online instructions for repair. Beautifully designed and I’ve sold three of my family or friends on them at least by now.
lots of 3rd-party accessories made for them too.
Prior to my deciding that I wouldn’t bother fixing the Dyson (which I refer to as the Bison), I had taken to eBay to buy bags of random parts…which I was sure would eventually crap out on mine.
I was usually right about that.
My experience with a Dyson (DC-25 “Ball” upright) was quite opposite: no more effective than other vacuums I’ve used; noisy in a much more annoying way (higher pitch), and not at all durable—rickety, weak plastic parts wanted to break off and even without that, the vacuum did not feel sturdy. It did not take long after buying it in November for us to conclude we had mistakenly bought an item primarily designed as a lifestyle emblem/accessory rather than as an implement. We sold it the following May to someone who had Dyson stars in his eyes and couldn’t wait to get his hands on it because it was a Dyson!
We eventually bought a Miele and it is enduringly enormously better than the Dyson in every possible way. Plus, while I don’t have any particular love or hatred for the Miele people, from what I’ve read about Mr. Dyson I prefer no further cent from me reaches his pocket.
Dyson’s “Airblade” public-washroom hand dryers are alarmingly problematic, as well, but none of that matters to true believers.
In retrospect, our experience with the Dyson reminds me in some ways of the Tesla fandom: if the product and its maker gives them a warm fuzzy, that’s great (to the degree it doesn’t affect my safety or health). Me, I’m not playing.
100% agree with everything you say here. 100%.
The only vac that exceeds the Miele in my opinion is the old canister-type Electrolux machines. Rock simple to repair, and they just keep going. Not quite as efficient as the Miele, but very dependable. The last one of those I had, when it came time to part with it, I managed to sell for much more than it cost me to acquire it. Apparently commercial cleaners love them.
I never had an Electrolux, but I did have a couple of Tri-Stars. This kind. They worked great and shrugged off any amount of abuse, but were quite heavy and the big open-top dirtbag (heh) was a sneezemaker to remove and discard.
Yeah, I ran across those tamper proof torx when I replaced the ignition switch on my 1988 Ranger. Luckily my mechanic father in law had the correct tools for the job.
Having a little mig welder and acetylene torches me cobble together special tools when necessary. Often the result doesn’t look very special but does the job.
Our old direct drive Admiral washer finally seized the gearbox last year. I went to my daughter and asked her “Are you hammering something?” and she said “I thought you were hammering something!”
Boy, lots of replies and quick on this topic. I’m of several minds on it.
First, they build things to build and sell them, not necessarily to fix or be fixed. So, in spite of my insistence on fixing things, I have to accept that.
Second, sometimes in the manufacturing process things have to be done just so, like say setting up a differential, so special tools are reasonably required.
Third, an argument, usually fictitious, can be made, that regular people shouldn’t be in there, so special screws.
But all too often, in the case of the washer in the title, and say Apple, though they’re not the only ones, they do it just to be mean. Anyone can get those tools today, thanks to the internet, but to be forced to buy new tools just because someone decided to be mean about it (and I can, but won’t, use stronger language) is unconscionable. I currently have most of the tamper proof tools so I’m only delayed a bit, but it still pisses me off. Our old coffeemaker was taking forever to brew a while ago so I took it apart. And the SOBs used tamperproof screws on the bottom, but not inside. I even wrote the the mfr over that one, I also mentioned the crappy design using a high limit switch as a thermostat, which go weaker and weaker as time and thermal cycling went on. Whoever was responsible for responding got fixated on the poor design, which was very much a secondary complaint and about 3 emails later (I guess he had to respond) he was almost begging me to stop emailing him. Which I did since I doubted he was the one responsible for the crappy or mean design.
But who does things like that, spec something just to be mean. Oh, I know Steve Jobs would have if he gotten that far into detail, which I doubt, but there’s something wrong with those people. I know, it’s not like an axe murderer, but they have a definite failing of the moral compass.
I totally agree with you.
And the first time I took apart the coffee maker (Krups)…to change the heater element (subsequently I’ve replaced both the logic board as well)…I replaced some kind of oddball torx screws with normal screws.
I’m thinking that you and I may be in the less than 1% of the population who have bothered to repair a coffee maker. OTOH, I’ve had that coffee maker for about 25 years and it works like a champ.
Coffee machines; electric kettles*, popcorn poppers, toaster ovens, and other countertop thermal appliances have long been built with tamperproof housing screws. Many years ago, back before the likes of ZenDesk, when you could call a company and get to talk to people actually involved in the design and domestic manufacture of the product, a Presto (I think) engineer told me they do that to discourage people using them to make incendiary devices or installing a line cord longer or thinner than the original. Practically this is silly; anyone can get drivers for whatever which kind of screw is used. But legally, it’s due dilligence.
Speaking of electric kettles, I did not encounter them at all until I moved to Canada. Then I experienced how much faster they are in Europe, because 230 volts and 3,000 max watts rather than 120 volts and 1,800 max watts. We recently added a 240v line to the kitchen, originally for a need we realised—as the line was being finished up—we didn’t actually have. About that time I found the unusual outlet you see on the right here, which is a UK-spec outlet built to fit North American boxes. So rather than a 2-box with a 120v outlet and a 240v outlet, we went with a 3-box with a 120v outlet, a NEMA 240v outlet we will likely never use, and the UK outlet. I ordered a carefully-chosen 3kW electric kettle from the UK, and it is gratifyingly fast.
Do inspectors ever put the kibosh on oddball electrical outlets? I’ve tried running rest-of-world appliances in the U.S. which invariably run faster due to diswashers plugging into 240v/20A, toasterovens and coffeemakers funning off 240v, washers and dryers running off 240v for faster water heating – some have only a cold water inlet – and faster microwave ovens. The only real issue for certain types of electrical gear is 50hz rahter than 60hz timing.
Well, I suppose it depends whether the device is just unusual, or if it’s unusual and not compliant with applicable standards, regulations, guidelines, bylaws, paragraphs, sub-paragraphs, codicils, etc. This BS-1363 (UK-style) outlet isn’t some Alibaba special; it’s just buried in a seldom-visited backwater of Leviton’s cattledog.
I looked into UK toasters, but for some strange reason they all seem to be significantly lower-wattage devices than can be had in North America.
I can’t imagine going to the trouble and expense of sourcing a 240v dishwasher—why? North American clothes dryers already run on 240v, and UK microwave ovens have about the same wattage range (700 to 1,200) as North American ones, so there again, no point.
Faster water self-heating in a clothes washer? Okeh, I can see that, but I accomplished most of the same thing with much less effort and expense with some stragety (once you’ve watched Bugs Bunny, you can never say or spell that word correctly ever any more) and a few visits to a hose-and-fittings shop.
If I were to import one big appliance from Europe, it would be a dryer like the Zanussi item in the apartment where we stayed in Budapest about five years ago. Its drum reversed direction every few moments. Sheets and stuff didn’t get tied in knots. It was fantastic.
I wonder where those who are allowed to pick over transfer station discards live .
Back in the late 1950s through about 1969 I lived in rural areas that had open town dumps and I salvaged many fine things, I still have my ex Ma Bell telephone pole climbers and rotary lineman’s handset .
I’d always rather fix than replace but that’s not what drives our economy .
It’s also part of why I maintain a separate residence, my Sweet doesn’t like my house full of old things ~ candlestick telephones and Western Electric # 500 desk sets with actual _BELLS_ that peal loudly so I can hear them etc. .
-Nate
My dad once had a business in Monkey County MD where he had to regularly go to the (then) county dump (long gone now) in Rockville MD. He took me several times, and allowed me to pick through the offcast items. I recall finding a minty 1940’s A.C. Gilbert Erector Set in its original metal case…and I was hooked. I’ve been a transfer station shopper ever since.
I now live in North Central Massachusetts, and have no problems getting transfer station discards.
Things like major appliances are typically discarded “for free” since the town gets $ from selling the scrap. (Appliances that contain hazardous waste – e.g., freon – do get charged) The dump guys have no issue with one taking small parts. Although it’s always a race between finding a machine that has parts before the dump guys smash them up with the backhoes…because, heck, if you got to hang out all day and smash up stuff for fun, well, why wouldn’t you?
I also get a ton of electronics (printers and monitors as I need them, etc.). Those the transfer station charges a disposal fee for, because they need to then pay to have those things recycled. But if one finds something they want to take – I have several perfectly functional Apple Cinema Displays I’ve gotten that way – then it’s a win-win for the town since they charged the dispose-er but didn’t have to pay the recycler since I (or someone like me) took it off the town’s hands.
I have had mixed results picking at the transfer station (or dump). My town seems to discourage it but if your nice to the guy at the gate he will let you grab from certain piles (electronics for sure metal not always). I went with my father in law to the transfer station in their town a few months ago and picked up a leaf blower. At that transfer station there were a number of people actively picking which would not happen in my town.
When I was teenager the town had a dump and when I was real little I remember picking stuff and it being common, later they shut that down but a friend had a family member who worked the dump and he would let us pick things. Once got a whole jet ski and 60″ wide commercial mower. Both had been dumped in 40 yd dumpsters.
Unfortunately, as I’ve gotten older I have this sneaking suspicion that picking over things at the transfer station is the hallmark of “old guy who probably should find something better to do with his time” on Saturday mornings.
The best part though is running into someone else doing the same thing. There’s at first the side-eying of what each of you is looking at/has acquired (Hummmmm…30 seconds quicker and I could have gotten THAT!), and then the recognition of a kindred spirit; who just like you probably was a fan of Sanford and Son in 1972.
Old Guy ~ HA ! that’s me and I think nothing or poking through other people’s discards .
I’ve gotten more than a few free automobiles, light trucks and Motocycles that way .
I understand they don’t want people digging in the dump, in 19767 or so Ray was trash picking with his son who was having fun shooting rats and his dad picked, got terribly burned all over one side of his face / head when a 55 gallon drum of who knows what exploded .
He was lucky he wasn’t killed nor go blind .
As always two sides to every story .
The modern LKQ Self – Service junkyards charge you $3 to get in and fairly cheap on whatever you bring to the sales counter .
I was in Milliken LKQ last year when two guys were unbolting a gasoline powered air compressor from the headache rack of a lightly wrecked field service rig ~ had I been there at my usual butt crack of dawn time, I’d bought it .
-Nate
As far as the washing machine goes, they may have just run out of the ordinary screws.
My youngest son used to work at Whirlpool Clyde, in assembly, until he got tired of being laid off.
Its like cars, cheaper than shutting the line down.
That’s a good point. I suppose that could have happened on my machine (which was built in Mexico) as well. And I guess that’s a more charitable explanation than that Whirlpool engineers were just trying to mess with me.
Years ago I picked up a Harbor Freight security bit set for around $12 bucks. I can’t recall what I needed it for but it’s come in handy a couple more times fixing random items. Whenever I run into some thing really stupid like your Whirlpool situation it’s a nice piece of mind knowing I should be able to service it. I also own a Whirlpool front loader. What frustrates me most about its design is that it doesn’t have a front panel to access the pump filter. One has to tear half of it apart just to do something that should take ten minutes max. Looking at your BMW manual only reinforces my opinion BMW’s are over engineered and unnecessarily complex. A coworker has an older 740i with a liquid cooled alternator. Seriously WTF engineering.
Yes, and I lay on the floor and take off that front panel and clean that filter several times a year. What kills me is that no where in the manual does it even indicate that filter needing cleaning…even though it’s clearly a user-serviceable part and clearly needs to be periodically cleaned. I suppose that Whirlpool just assumed that people would call the service guy when their machine stopped draining due to a clogged filter, or throw away the machine and buy a new one??
They finally decided to add access on these. Our 18-month old Whirlpool front loader has a lower drawer that holds the detergent auto-dispenser and allows access to the filter.
You do have to fiddle with the slides to completely remove the drawer in order to get to the filter though.
I have a Citroen 2CV that I bought in 1991. It has a build date of 1983. In 2015 I had to replace the frame due to rust. I took the opportunity to fix some rust in the body, so I had to disassemble the car. It was surprisingly straightforward but there was a special wrench required for the spring cylinders. It was a standard metric size (46mm) but significantly thinner than normal. There were a couple of other special tools to make some adjustments easier. I got them, but you could get along without them. The one that really surprised me was when I went to take the latch out of the front doors. They required a large size Torx, and it was so tight that I could not loosen it with a screwdriver. I ended up buying a cheap set of drivers at Princess Auto with a T-bar handle. Why would Citroen use a Torx fastener inside a door? In any case I am ready for the next one I encounter.
Quadrajet carbs had plugs over the idle mixture screws back in the late 70’s-80’s before electronic fuel injection came online. The screws used to be slotted and also hex shaped when they used limiter caps. With the plugged throttle plate they used a double D shaped screw head. Two more special tools to add to the collection. No reason to do this as the plugs were swaged in place. The common way to remove the plugs were flip the carb over, two cuts parallel to the plug and use a narrow chisel to pop out a piece of the base plate material then a punch to pop out the plug. Slap the carb back on and hook up the gas analyzer and adjust away.
When outboards got added to the emissions controls 20 years ago they started plugging the mixture screws with brass plugs. we found you could drill them most of the way through then thread in screw a couple of threads and rock them out. Pain in the but really.
Since we’re talking about unusual ways to get screwed (ahem), one thing I like a whole lot about Canada is Robertson screws. They are the right answer to the question.
Canada does a lot of things better than the USA. Robertson screws are just one of them.
My gutter screws are like that, but they’re a bit ! too long for the square head to hold the screw on.
My deck and fence were built with Robertson screws but we used Torx head screws for rebuilding since they are more amenable to being driven with a cordless impact wrench.
Those Robertson screws/drivers always remind me of the special LEGO screwdriver that worked with LEGO “Toolo” (yes, the actual name), a variant of Duplo. https://brickset.com/sets/theme-Duplo/subtheme-Toolo
Toolo was cool in that it was all about building vehicles, construction equipment, and such. We had several sets of that pass through the house in my kids’ efforts to own every type of LEGO ever created. I just ran across one of the Toolo screw drivers the other day in some box of stuff…
Anyway, there you go, even in the world of LEGO there are special tools. 🙂
My guess at why they used tamperproof Torx screws to hold the solenoid valves in: they might’ve been more compatible with whatever assembly procedure was used. Maybe the tamperproof screws stayed on the driver bit just enough more reliably to allow doing it this way instead of that way, which in turn permitted the use of an existing assembly tool or station. Possibly not even on this model; maybe that was the case on some other product assembled on the same line, and using just one kind of screw was less costly than reserving the tamperproof screws for just the models that needed it.
H’mm…tamperproof screws. Could this post be the much-discussed; never-explained, never-before-seen TPS report?
We bought a Duett too, about 15-17 years ago. My wife loved it. I fixed one or two minor issues, including new shock absorbers. But then the control module died. I bought one from ebay, but it was slightly different, and wouldn’t work. I cannot find a direct replacement for it.
But shortly before this happened I saw a fairly new Whirlpool top-loading high efficiency washer at the curb (meaning free). It looked to be just a couple of years old. I saw the woman in the yard and asked to confirm it was free for the taking and asked what was wrong. “It won’t start”.
Turns out the little plastic tab that’s in the lid and goes down into the lid lockout switch was broken. I found it for $2.70 online. Bingo! Cheapest repair ever, and it works like a charm.
The Duett is still in the basement, as getting it up would require serious disassembly. I’m still hoping I might find the right board someday, but I’ve stopped looking.
You bought your Duett and got some good use out of it. Then you got a free washing machine to take its place. The control module for the Duett was not to be had when you were looking for it. Now you’re not looking for it at all. If you were it would be harder to find now. Rid yourself of this burden and don’t look back.
Point of clarification: the Whirlpool washers are Duet, with one ‘t’. The Duett is an old Volvo model. If Volvo made washing machines, they’d be boxy; safe, and durable.
I guess that’s good news – a Duet is not nearly as hard to get out of a basement as a Duett. 🙂
15 – 17 years ago may make it a slightly newer one than mine (WFW9150WW00), but for mine, I can still find the control module, or at least one that I’d take a shot on being correct (so true…there are many slight changes in these things that compatibility is never for sure).
Here’s the control module…$125 – https://www.ebay.com/itm/133959387933 (also still available new from Whirlpool for about $400)
If it’s the “user interface” you need (the control panel and the circuit board behind that)…$80 to $100 and change – https://www.ebay.com/itm/185627788677 (this seems NLA from Whirlpool)
Your story about the curbside HE washer is exactly the deal with the stuff find. Some days I’m rather sure that if it were legally possible to just title any car that you came up with (i.e. got for free) people would be leaving cars out for someone to take because “the tire is flat”.
I dig special tools, like the legendary Campagnolo bicycle tool kits in the fitted wooden box. I’ve got a late 80s VW tool catalog and a few critical items for both A1 VWs and BMW motorcycles, although some of my BMW stuff is home made like the clutch let down tool that was $150 in 1992, versus $10 worth of metric hardware (admittedly M8x1.0x75mm cap screws were rare and a lucky find). I also have a piston support made out of red oak and a swingarm locknut socket made by putting a cheap 27mm socket on a lathe.
I understand the keep it running attitude, the hot tub, gas grill and washer dryer from our first house were still going strong after 19 years and some repairs. Most “tamper proof” stuff can be handled with a big Harbor Freight bit set or a Dremel and a small burr to grind out the offending piece. For really exotic stuff like the pentalobe Apple uses to keep you out iFixit.com has a lot of eletronics tools and also repair guides.
My one trip on a sailing yacht (rental) was marred by a broken rudder cable a few miles from the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake. We couldn’t figure out how to hold the rudder steady and had to call for a tow into St. Mary’s, mortifying especially for our skipper, a retired naval aviator and small catamaran owner, who shouldn’t have drunk those beers. There was a round metal plate on the floor of the cockpit with two little indentations an inch or two apart. Back in harbor, we found in the bottom of a bin a lever with two spikes to twist off the plate and a jury-rig tiller (steel pipe L) to stick on the top of the exposed rudder post. A further embarrassment.
Now that I think about that trip, we had trouble unscrewing the lid of the fuel tank before we left. Ended up using a quarter in a vice grip, but the correct tool was probably also in that bin. Buy your own yacht, don’t rent one!
That reminds me of one of my favorite automotive special tools…the Volvo fuel tank bung ring removal tool.
My 245 has the older 140-style fuel level sensor (with attached in-tank pump) and unlike newer 240s where the entire unit bayoneted into the tank, the old ones use a slotted ring recessed in a cramped space below the cargo area floor to hold the unit into the top of the tank. Removal of this thing – which typically rusts since it’s technically outside the body of the car – requires either this tool or the use of a hammer and chisel to carefully bang the thing off. And well, since you’re working on the fuel tank, I think that the tool is $20 well spent. Even if it doesn’t do anything other than allow you to remove the fuel level sensor on an ancient Volvo.
Deck plate keys. There are a few different types but many of the fuel and water fills use them and sometimes access plates. The best was on one of my father boats which had a removable shift lever. There was a deck plate above the transmission,with a rectangular indent, the end of the shifter fit the indent, you screwed out the deck plate and inserted the lever into the transmission.
A good thread here, I’m enjoying the comments and topic drift as well .
In the late carby era they made the fuel mixture screws with a wasp waist where the slotted part was, set them and snap off, no further user adjustments possible .
Lunacy .
-Nate
I feel your pain. It’s always that one screw that brings the whole job to a halt. In this case I would have grabbed my Dremel tool with a mini cut off wheel and cut a slot in that screw so it could be removed with a flat head screwdriver.
I haven’t run into the need for many special tools at all on the older cars. However, I did recently order two inexpensive special tools to work on my new interest. Yes, another new interest. Restoring two IBM Selectric IIs back to nice working condition. The darn things have 2700 parts inside and it really is a contraption when you take off the case.
Wow tbm3fan!! This just keeps getting better 🙂
One of my more difficult decisions at the transfer station recently was a lovely Selectric II. It appeared to be in good shape and was there enshrouded under its vinyl cover (which probably hadn’t been removed in a decade). The first week I saw it, I pondered it and then passed it up. But as it was in the Electronics trailer (which only gets emptied monthly), it stayed out of the elements and was still there the next week still begging for me to liberate it. Knowing that I simply did not need this thing (and having some idea about the 2700 parts), I eventually took just the golfball…which was in a font that I’d never heard of before. That now adorns my desk and is all things considered (for me…I’m not judging) better than having to find space for the whole typewriter.
Crazy thing is, when you actually need a typewriter…which is for me probably every other year or so…there’s pretty much no good substitute (not unlike a fax or photocopier). That said, they do take up a lot of space indoors (as you can’t leave them outdoors like old cars 😉 )
I’d most certainly have taken it if it’d been a green or blue one (man, I LOVED those things…). But this one was standard office black.
One is tan
One is green. This was greased beyond belief. Needed new hub, rotate ribbon, a few new springs, completely de-greased, and carefully re-lubed. One will go into my office to type basic stuff such as name labels on records. More practical than my other much older manual typewriters.
Geeze, where had that one been? On a factory floor somewhere? Periodic lubrication done with 10W-40? 🙂
I admire you for learning how to work on one of these. I can imagine that working on a typewriter is somewhat like working on a carburetor. Constant fiddly adjustments to get it working just right.
I’m old enough to remember when these were a hot commodity on the black market. Folks would pretend to be repairmen, drop it on a cart, and walk out the front door. The later ones with correction cartridges were the most prized.
To put in prospective, think back a year or two when Yeti ice chests were stollen off the back of a truck. Better yet, the CB in your car.
Jeff,
I’ve always been amazed at just how many specialty tools are needed to repair old typewriters and adding machines. In the early 1930s my paternal grandparent moved to Washington DC soo he could get a good government job. The GSA put him in a Burroughs Adding Machine Company training course to repair things, and he then went to the Remington school for typewriter repair.
I inherited a huge collection of his tools, many of them special long, thin, tools for adjusting the connecting wires between the keys and strikers. Over the years I’ve found these tools to be valuable in restoring old vehicles, so I always kept them.
The case used foam as a silencer. The same foam as in cameras from back then which turns back into oil almost. Mixed with the too much oil and grease you can get one heck of a mess and when it dries it then gums up the system. Lots of solvent to get all that out. Today the replacement for IBM’s oil and grease is Mobile One 5W-20 and Mobile 28 Aviation Grease used judiciously. The above is very typical for a unit that had been last used in the 90s and then sat.
Wow, that is super interesting. We had a Selectric at work for typing manual invoices, the last time I saw it was around 2010 and I hopefully it survived our office relocation.
How about a 5-bladed screwdriver, e.g. a Phillips head with an extra blade and shaped like a 5 point star? Back in 1989 someone vandalized the passenger side California mirror on my ’82 Toyota SR-5 pickup. Tore the mirror right off the ball joint that was screwed into the mount on the door. That was the problem–it took a special screwdriver head to take the ball joint stem off the mount. That was a trip to a hardware store(s) until I could find one. And it had to be a large size. Actually it was a bit that was attached to a 1/4″ ratchet I learned. I found a replacement mirror with ball joint stem in a junkyard (the third one) since this wasn’t anything I could order (this was 1989, what an internet?). I still have my toolbox but not sure I have that special bit–I never needed it again. I gave my truck away in 1998.
There was one special circumstance I wish I could find such screws. My NC house was broken into in 2007. The back kitchen window was their entry; because of a previous burglary I had screwed it shut (2 2″ screws in the sash where the upper and lower overlap), and they broke the window and actually took the screws out! (The window was also painted shut–not my doing–so they still had to get over the glass.) There are instances for non-standard screws and this was one of them.
Last year our Sears canister vacuum would not shut off unless the cord was pulled from the wall. Quick check online said a relay was stuck closed. Out came my special points file that I bought in the early 90’s and in no time the vacuum was fixed. The only reason I had the file was to clean the relay contacts on my pinball machines
And people ask me why I still keep points burnishing files in my tool box….
-Nate
Okay ;
Now the YORK HVAC packed it in, it’s a york furnace model tgls100c20mp-11b
And the cute little LED that’s supposed to blink in various colors or numbers, isn’t .
I checked and it has power to the plug, I don’t see any door safety switches, now what ? .
TIA, you guys are teaching me lots .
-Nate
Make sure your thermostat isn’t trying to get the furnace to do anything (not calling for heat, not calling for fan, not calling for cooling), kill all power to the furnace for a couple of minutes, then restore it and see if you get any flash codes described on p. 27 of the install manual available here You might have to use the “Last Code” button described on p. 28. If still no codes, that starts to sound like a board failure; you’d need to put a tech on it.
Thank you Daniel ;
I did all that and still no joy .
The control board has so many individual wires I fear to try replacing it as I might mix them up .
-Nate
-Nate,
As someone who has an education in electronics and electrical engineering, I know it’s easy to keep track of wiring if you know the “tricks”. Here are a few suggestions:
1. Take detailed photos with your camera/phone BEFORE starting the repair. Take additional photos as needed during the work. In my opinion, ya can’t take too many photos!
2. If the wires are plugged into a circuit board and you can’t get a decent photo, take pencil & paper and create a diagram. [I suggest you do a basic diagram anyway.]
3. Using your diagram, label each connecting point with a number. Using a small piece of masking tape, label each connector [or individual wire] with the corresponding number on your diagram, Make sure the tape goes all the way around the wire, to form a little flag.
4. If you don’t want to make masking tape flags, chances are your local hardware store’s electrical section has a little packet of sticky tags imprinted with strips of numbers and letters. These are used by electricians and wiring harness assemblers to wrap around each wire. The matching number can be attached to the circuit board next to the connecting point. These look more professional, and last longer than masking tape. I’m attaching a photo of the ones I use.
Note that it’s likely the connectors that plug into a circuit board are different for each connecting point, If you can confirm they are all different, than it’s very difficult to make a mistake
Thanx Bill ;
I may just do that, I have do so (the flags) before when working on vintage vehicles .
-Nate
-Nate,
Should have added that if you are replacing a circuit board or other component, then it’s important to add matching adhesive numbers to the new board, in the exact location as seen on the old board/component. Don’t make the mistake and transfer the numbers from the old board to the new one. If you do that then it’s difficult to confirm you did it correctly.
I’m adding another photo showing an example of numbered wires with connector
Nice ! I imagine those were made with a hand held labeler I’ll never have .
-Nate
-Nate,
The number strips are available at our local Ace for only a couple of bucks. They also have small round plastic clip-on numbers as well, those are reusable, but more $.
Thanx Bill ! .
I should find out where my local ACE Hwe. is and buy a set .
Being my birthday I took today off and my Sweet called me a moment ago to tell me her cousin thinks he can fix it for $20 so I’m out .
-Nate