Whirlpool washing machine drum removal?

ponder

ponder

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Whirlpool FL243 front loading washing machine.

Something managed to knock a hole the size of a R2 coin close to the drain pipe at the bottom of the plastic housing that keeps all the water in the machine. I can hear something scraping when I turn the inner drum with my hand. I can't get my hand in the front if I take the rubber seal off as the space is about a finger wide.

So I need to remove the inner drum from the back. I've attached a diagram below.
Will the whole drum assembly come out as one piece if I remove the retaining ring and gasket (201 1 & 292 0) to free the back cover 201 2.
The back cover is attached to the drum and has bearings etc I don't want to touch, I would be happy to remove the whole thing as a single unit.

What would you guys recommend repairing the hole with?
If I can find the broken piece of plastic I will chloroform or pvc weld it back in with epoxy over the outside but if I cant find the piece I'm a bit lost.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Click on image below for larger version.


Another link in case that one does not work http://ompldr.org/vYWtzMQ/whirlpool.png
 
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Ok, easy job. Retaining ring and gasket came off by simply removing the one bolt with an allen key. Unhooking the two back springs drops the entire assembly far enough to simply pull out the entire drum assembly.

Found a big piece of metal in there that caused the damage, looks like part of a scraper. No idea how it got in there as it's not part of any component and could not come through the pipes as it's to big to fit any of the holes. Also found the chunk of plastic it broke out so now I just need to figure out how to bond it in place again.
 
I phoned pratley earlier and they don't recommend it it for stuff submerged in water. They recommend their SP001 product which is a special order item.

The material is polypropylene which seems to be a major issue for most adhesives.
 
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Have you looked at Q-Bond? I remember seeing a few product samples at a hardware shop many years ago and it seemed to work extremely well. You could try to contact the manufacturer about performance in heated water. Maybe you could coat the area after the adhesive has cured to improve the properties. One of those bathroom silicon sealants or black exhaust silencer sealers might be suitable?

Seems to be suitable for repairing radiators but not polypropylene ...
http://www.bidorbuy.co.za/item/3445105/Q_BOND_ULTRA_ADHESIVE_BONDS_AND_FILLS_ALMOST_ANYTHING.html
 
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Hehe, some feedback. This morning the washing machined sprung another leak and I thought it was the repair job I did gone wrong.

I turned the washing machine over to check the repair I did with 2-part Pratley Epoxy and it was bone dry and still holding up well ;)

The new leak sprung from a small tear in the bottom of the door boot. Gonna check if I can turn the boot 180° as a temp stop gap seeing no water goes near the top of the boot and water does not flow up unless someone knows of some waterproof rubber blue :D
 
ponder said:
The new leak sprung from a small tear in the bottom of the door boot. Gonna check if I can turn the boot 180° as a temp stop gap seeing no water goes near the top of the boot and water does not flow up unless someone knows of some waterproof rubber blue :D
Click to expand...

Should work - it might dribble and drabble a few drops, but it should be better than a big leak.

Or else you can just buy a new door boot seal?
 
The_Librarian said:
Should work - it might dribble and drabble a few drops, but it should be better than a big leak.

Or else you can just buy a new door boot seal?
Click to expand...

Had a look and can't see why it won't work.

Busy getting quotes now, some people out there try and rip you a new one and must think I was born yesterday.

Cheapest price is from Tecsa (Whirlpool referred me to them) at R364 ex VAT. Some idiots want to charge me double that :D Thing is only spares available are in JHB and they say it will take a week to get here. Can't not do the washing for a week, smelly.
 
Do you dry the boot after every wash? If the water pools in the boot it will cause the rubber to deteriorate and tear over time. You could try to repair it using a cheap bicycle puncture repair kit or alternatively use some yellow contact adhesive or Q-bond (small tube ~R14 at decent hardware stores) and a small piece of rubber to cover the tear. If you dry the boot after each wash it should last >25 years (at least mine has).
 
Yotch said:
Do you dry the boot after every wash? If the water pools in the boot it will cause the rubber to deteriorate and tear over time. You could try to repair it using a cheap bicycle puncture repair kit or alternatively use some yellow contact adhesive or Q-bond (small tube ~R14 at decent hardware stores) and a small piece of rubber to cover the tear. If you dry the boot after each wash it should last >25 years (at least mine has).
Click to expand...

No :D

Will look into a patch job, the tear is less than 10mm long
 
What glue did you use to reattach the boot after rotating it? If you can attach patches on both sides of the boot you should be able to repair it quite well.
 
If it's easy to remove then it might be simpler to repair as you can apply pressure to the patch. You could also consider applying a thin coating of clear silicon glue to the entire reverse side of the whole boot after repairing it if it looks like it is perished. This might prevent it from tearing again in a few months time. Try to coat a small section and then decide whether or not to do the whole area.
 
It's not perished, I think over time the boot just pulled one way and the torque on it caused the small tear. I'll see what I can do.

Did another load this morning and no leaks ;)
 
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