First of all thanks to the site admins and everyone who has contributed. The info on this site helped me to solve the first problem with my washer but unfortunately it created another that I can now not find the source to.

My unit is a Kenmore 970-C42162-00 Front Load. We have owned it just under 5 years.

I first experienced the dreaded bearing failure which I fixed by replacing the tub. I reassembled the unit and ran a cycle of just water to check for leaks. The washer ran fine until what I think was supposed to be the start of the rinse/drain cycle. At this point the motor began to turn the drum briefly (maybe half a turn) then stopped and after a few seconds it tripped my breaker. Now everytime I try to turn on the washer it just trips the breaker again instantly. It can be plugged into the wall without running and its fine but as soon as I try to start it by pulling out the knob it trips.
Where do I even start to try and diagnose this?

You'll need to re-check all your connections to the motor, motor controller board, drain motor and whatever other connections you had to undo to change the tub, if it didn't trip the breaker before you changed the tub, and it does now, then it has to be one of the connectors/connections.

Jake

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The only connection I took off was the one at the motor and it ran for the first part of the cycle fine.
I suspected it may be the drain pump so what I did was unplugged it from the circuit and turned on the washer assuming that if it was the part causing the short it would not trip the breaker at this point. Well it still did. I then unplugged the motor and motor controller and each time it still blew the breaker so now I need to start tracing wires I guess.

Well I think I have narrowed down the problem.

I began disconnecting every switch timer etc in the circuit trying to isolate the source of the short but every time I had the same resulting breaker trip.

Since the washer was still full of water and not wanting it to get musty in the brand new tub assembly I decided to drain the water thru the drain hose to a drain in our laundry room floor.

Well what do you know the washer will now run without throwing a breaker. I only ran it for a few seconds since its all torn apart but it works.

So it must be something with the water level sensor or perhaps still a drain pump problem? The one thing that puzzled me was that all the water in the tub wads able to drain. Does the washer not have a valve that should open to drain the water or does the pump just kick on?

Disregard what I said in the last post.

Yes the washer will now fill after draining the water manually but it still blows the breaker as soon as the motor trys to run. I confirmed this by turning the dial to final spin and turning it on.

Do these motors have centrifugal switches in the motor?

Yes.

Did you take the motor connector off and does it still kick the breaker?

Looks like you did, well, this is very weird, I'm not sure whats going on.

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

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Yes I did remove the connector from the motor and it still blew the breaker so I have no idea what is going on. Whatever it was, it had to have happened subsequent to me replacing the tub because the washer ran and spun fine for 10 minutes before it blew. Even when the motor stopped turning the initial time it took about 10 secs to trip the breaker, now its the moment the motor tries to run.
I'm going to look at each wire in the harness to see if I may have crushed it installing the tub but I still can't see that causing a breaker trip.

Ok, yes, try everything you can.

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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I am now starting to think it is not the motor, controller or the pump. I disconnected all the connectors from those parts and it still tripped the breaker.
I started disconnecting random plugs from other parts and once I removed the upper plug harness from the cycle selector knob (the knob on the far right of the machine) the fuse did not trip. I am now going to trace back from there.
One thing I just found that is odd to me is that both wires to the drain pump complete a circuit to ground on my ohm meter???? Basically putting one probe on the washer body and the other in either the white or pink wire of the connector yields the same result, a completed circuit to ground?? This confuses me.

Thats amazing, I've never seen that before.

I really don't know whats going on.

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