I am very grateful for all the helpful advise available on this forum. Using information gained on this site I was able to determine the motor on my GE Prodigy washer had lost low speed.

Original symptoms:
Clicking noise during slow speed operation with no action in the tub. Confirmed the clicking noise occurred while belt was disconnected.

I am highly proficient at mechanical and electrical diagnostic and repair, having graduated from an HVAC technical school back in the 80's. I replaced the motor with genuine GE factory replacement: WH49X10035. After installation I tested the operation using the diagnostic mode. Everything seems to work great except when set to the "Slow Agitate" setting the motor turns in the opposite direction required and instead of agitating it goes into slow spin cycle.

I double checked all the electrical connections and everything is according the instructions supplied with the kit. I could take the time to work out the wiring of the motor and figure out which wires to switch. But before touching anything I figured it best to check with you folks and see what you recommend.

Thanks again for a very informative and helpful forum.

Dry :-)

Hi Dry,

Thats very odd, don't think I've ever run into that before after I changed a motor on this model.

Where did you purchase the motor from?

But it sounds like your control board is causing it:
Manufacturer part number WH12X10169 is RepairClinic item number 877737
WH12X10169

Jake

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Figures, I always get the weird stuff.

I'm not interested in changing any parts without first diagnosing the problem and condemning the part. A visual observation of the control board reveals no burned out or discolored components. I have to believe if the control board was causing the motor to rotate in the opposite direction during slow agitation that the same would be true of the fast agitation cycle.

I mean somewhere on the board you have a set of relay contacts that switch from high speed to slow speed. And then you would have another set of contacts for switching from forward to reverse rotation. Right???

Running the washer through the cycles using diagnostic mode should bypass any of the cotrol logic on the board which might cause an error, right? And at position 2 of the diagnostic mode the eprom tests out good with no errors.

If I'm going to work this out I'm going to need the color code of the motor harness, showing which wire is doing what. I would need this for the new motor kit and not the original. Any idea on where I can obtain this?

Without this I'll have to use my ohm meter to work out the wiring diagram by hand.

Thanks for your help.

Dry :-)

Yes, thats very true, but do you have a tech. data sheet that shows you how to test it? GE is the worst for not providing easy online tech. data sheets like other appliance manufacturers do.

Thats why We have a special program here, all parts you order from our links we post are returnable within 30 days for a FULL refund if they don't fix the problem.

I don't because GE doesn't supply an online tech. data sheet for me to even check it.

Jake

__________________
Appliance Repair School 1987-1988
Star Appliance Tech. 2 yrs. 1988-1990
Wards Appliance Tech. 11 yrs. 1990-2001
Sears Appliance Tech. 4 yrs. 2001-Oct. 2005
Jake's Appliance Repair Nov. 2005-present

If you need more repair advice help on your appliance, click Here

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Seriously, I think this wiring harness has the slow speed agitate and the slow speed spin mixed up. I just tested the washer by turning the selection dial to 'Spin Only'. Instead of starting off in slow spin while the pump removes the first batch of water, the machine went into slow agitate, while the pump was running. Then after about 30-45 seconds the machine kicked into high speed spin and turned the pump off.

When the control panel is calling for slow spin you get slow agitate and when the control panel is calling for slow agitate you get slow spin. Fast speed works fine.

This is driving my a bit nuts.

I just checked the wire connections for about the 10th time. I re-read the installation instructions and found 2 discrepancies.

The instructions say to cut all wires in the existing wiring harness to the motor. Then it says to strip 7/16" insulation from THE 5 wires (there were 7 wires on my machine). 6 went to the molex plug on the motor and the other went to ground.

It goes on....
Step 6. Except for yellow wire, match all wires in harness color to color. (there is a note regarding the white with red striped wire needing to connect to the orange wire, got that). Next is says to firmly crimp all 5. (I have 6 crimped connections)

As follows:
[From Machine/To Motor Harness]
Blue/Blue
Violet/Violet
Red/Red
White-Red/Orange
Green-Yellow/Green-Yellow
White/White

The yellow wire is the 7th and it was connected to one side of the run cap per instructions step 10.

During the installation I did not notice the discrepancies in the number of wires because the number of wires from the harness matched the number from the machine. I just matched them up color to color. Nothing missing and nothing extra.

Please check my work here and let me know if it is correct.
Thanks.

Dry :-)

Yes, it looks correct to me Dry.

I'm not sure why its doing that either. Maybe another tech. or member thats see this exact same problem can shed some light on why this is happening.

Jake

__________________
Appliance Repair School 1987-1988
Star Appliance Tech. 2 yrs. 1988-1990
Wards Appliance Tech. 11 yrs. 1990-2001
Sears Appliance Tech. 4 yrs. 2001-Oct. 2005
Jake's Appliance Repair Nov. 2005-present

If you need more repair advice help on your appliance, click Here

Look-Up & Order Parts

Shop Home Appliances

Well I purchased the control panel after failing in my attempts to prove that it was the cause of my motor turning backwards on slow speed. After installing the new control board I tested the operation and it does exactly the same thing as it did with the original control board.

So, it looks like I'll be returning the control board tomorrow. Save's me some money but I still have a washer that is not fully functional.

This leads me right back to my original theory that the problem is in the wiring harness supplied with the replacement OEM motor. Seems as though I should just have to switch two wires somewhere on the relay but I don't want to do this unless someone can tell me for certain which wires to switch.

So if anyone has a professional opinion on this I would be very grateful.



Thanks.

Dry :-)

P.S.
Guess I could just try pulling off one wire at a time to see which one prevents the motor from running in slow speed. Then I could try doing it in agitate and then spin mode to narrow it down to three wires. One would have to be common and the other forward and reverse???