[FIXED] Drum Gasket and Rear Shell Bearings

[lyonkster]

To install the inner bearing, I could not find anything closely matching the outer race diameter. So I disassembled the old inner bearing, and used its outer race to push on the new bearing's outer race to drive it home. Here is the outer race from the old bearing, the bearing initially seated, and the bearing fully installed:



I used that same old outer race to seat the seal, with the spring facing the bearings:



Here is the new drum next to the old drum:


I then installed the inner drum into the rear tub, assembled the tub halves with the new gasket, and reassembled the machine.

I am now on my fourth load of laundry, everything is nice and quiet, with no leaks.

Hope this helps others.

Leon

 

[billford]

I researched this discrepancy by looking at the SKF seal design manual, which Timetripper linked: http://www.skf.com/files/774717.pdf

What I found relevant was this (emphasis mine):



It's pretty clear that the seal in the washing machine has the latter function. Its job is to keep water out of the bearings, not to keep oil in the bearings. The bearings are sealed, and there was no sign of oil anywhere in the bearing hub area. But there sure was plenty of water that entered the hub cavity, so the seal's primary job is to keep out the water, and thus the lip and the spring should indeed face the drum, not the bearings, as feabor17 correctly stated.

However, this would require a stainless steel spring, which I had a bear of a time finding locally. So I decided to make do with what I could, and bought a seal that I could find locally, which was the standard 40x80x10 rubber coated double lip seal, with carbon steel spring. I decided to mount it with the spring facing the bearing, because I did not want the carbon steel spring exposed to water. I noticed that the OEM seal had the primary seal on the bearing side, and the dust lip facing the water, so I figured that my approach was no worse than OEM, and I should be able to get another 10 years out of the machine.

The proper way to do it is to install the lip (or spring) away from the bearing, towards the stainless steel tub to seal the water out, because this is the pressure side.

But you can't install it this way because, on reassembly, when you reinstall the inner tub through the seal and bearings, the seal lip will catch on the surface where the seal rides on and damage the seal.

In this case, the lip of the seal (or the spring) must face towards the bearing. This way, the seal cannot be damaged on reassembly. So, you installed the only way it can be installed even though its backwards. Thats the way I installed mine. Just pack the area between the seal and bearing with grease, so the lip does not run dry.

To get technical, when resealing an automatic transmissions, a tool like this, Transmission Part by Bulk Part Tools Tool, LIP Seal installer has to be used. But there is no way it would work on this unit

 

[lyonkster]

So you are saying that the seal will get damaged if installed towards the water, even though we agree that from the sealing standpoint, that would be the right approach - is your concern that it will be damaged during operation of the washer, or during installation onto the drum shaft?

 

[billford]

It will be damaged on installation when the drum spider shaft goes through it, unless you can stretch the lip apart, and there is no way to do it if the lip faces the stainless steel drum. If you tried to dry fit it first on the spider shaft you will easily see that.

Before I knocked the seal into place, I slid the seal onto the spider shaft to make sure it was the correct size. I tried carefully to slide it on with the lip (spring) towards the stainless steel drum, it would not go on, because the lip would catch on the edge of the spider shaft sealing surface and distort the lip. Forcing it on would have damaged the seal. If the shaft had more of a taper on it, the seal could slide on without damaging it. So the only way it could go on is if the lip faces away from the stainless steel drum. The lip will just "stretch" on to the shaft sealing surface without damaging it.

My old seal did not even have a spring on it. But it still sealed. I just had a bad ball bearing, the hardface on one ball was chipped making a noise.

If you installed the seal lip towards the bearing, you will be ok.

 

[lyonkster]

It will be damaged on installation when the drum spider shaft goes through it, unless you can stretch the lip apart, and there is no way to do it if the lip faces the stainless steel drum. If you tried to dry fit it first on the spider shaft you will easily see that.

That's what I thought you meant, thanks for clarifying. It turned out that my tub cracked after the spider broke, so all my bearings and seal work was for naught since I am getting a new rear tub assembly, with the bearings and seal already installed. So now I have an extra set of nice Nachi bearings and a seal that I don't need .

 

[PCFithian]

I also had worn bearings and a broken spider, see attached. Unit is Frigidaire FWT449GFS1, DOM is 05/99. We've had this since new and have had good service out of it.

Many thanks to the other posters who helped me understand that this repair is not that difficult.

The old seal and bearings were fairly easy to remove. I pried the seal out with a small crowbar and used a solid rod as a drift to knock out the bearings. I got my bearings from Amazon and an SKF 562737 seal from Motion Industries, their item 02335839.

My old seal had the number 1312757, I found this repair kit, containing the bearings and seal, see Search

I also found this excellent video on replacing the bearings. Although it's for a Bosch washer, the bearing replacement technique is identical. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaFF2-Rl8Nc

 

[PCFithian]

My washer is now fully operational, many thanks again to previous posters who provided clear guidance on how to complete this repair.

I did note that the new cast spider had a logo, "Made in India" on it.

 

[Dakota's dad]

OK.. so about 5 years ago, I found this thread, and others, when the seal let go, and then took the bearings with it, on our Frigidaire front loader. At that time, the spider looked good compared to most. We did seem to have a lot of gunk built up, so I cleaned and inspected it, then started using less detergent..

Well last Saturday, the thing went into "about to explode" mode on final spin. Disassembly found a broken spider. But not a lot of detergent/gunk buildup As of this post, the washer is 12 years old.

Tried calling FD.. talked to some complete butwadd. Come Monday, took the drum down to a local mom and pop repair place who are a FD authorized repair place, and they did the phone call and got me a new basket/spider under warranty. Paid them some $$ for their trouble. Bearings were absolutely aok, and so was the seal, but since I was in there, I did replace the seal. (I used very high quality bearings on my first repair)

So I just wanted to say thanks for those who have gone before, and keep this thread/forum up and running.

BTW, if it were not for that freaking wire clamp thingy on the water fill tube.. this would be a 1 hour repair. As a " how I did it" note.. this time I had a bit of help, so I used a length of wire to hold the drum as far to the rear of the cabinet as possible, then pulled the two screws that hold the hard part of the filler tube to the chassis allowing it to move about an inch, this gave me enough room to get the clamp near closed with both hands from the side and underneath, and she just grabbed the ends and twisted with a pair of long needle nose pliers from the top... easypeasy, as long as you have that third hand.

Also my new spider seems a little different/heavier than the old one, and was also marked "India".

 

[biguggy]

Dakota's dad
Frigidaire is totally owned by Electrolux and there is a Shop Manual for this series of washers and their Kenmore cousins at:
http://www.emaservicetips.com/pdfs/360_TumbleActionWashers.pdf
and, on page 72 it shows how to make a little tool for the water fill tube clamp.
Like you, I struggled with several of these prior to finding the manual. Since finding the manual have not had cause to see if it works!!

 

[seanimo]

warrenty

Hi thanks for all the good info on this site ,just took my washer apart to replace the bearings and found the spyder is broken in 2 places .I have seen on some posts that the rear tub has a lifetime warrenty on some models and wanted to know if mine does it is 417.44142400 . If not where can I order a new spyder ? Thanks

 

[biguggy]

According to the manual for your washer the inner drum, which includes the spider, does have a limited lifetime warranty.
To obtain the warranty you must contact Sears and arrange for them to attend and verify that the washer and basket are covered. You will have to pay for the visit, and the fitting of the replacement parts. It is also extremely likely that the rear section of the outer drum will also require renewal because it houses the bearings and seal which will very likely require renewal, these are not available separately but come fitted to the outer drum (rear section), you will likely also have to pay for this plus any other parts that require renewal.

 

[seanimo]

Thanks it would have ended up costing more than I wanted to put into an older machine so just purchased a new washer . I have all the parts off this machine for sale if anyone needs them.

 

[biguggy]

It has recently come to my attention that Whirlpool have admitted in a Canadian court that:
1. They have altered the material of their spiders, to an aluminium alloy more resistant to corrosion.
2. Altered the design of the spiders to improve drainage.
3. Altered the design of the outer tubs to reduce pooling.
4. Altered the user manuals to give instruction regarding cleaning and introduced cleaning cycles to the machines.
The details can be found on pages 15 to 19 here:
http://classproceedings.ca/files/2012/09/Whirlpool-Certification-Denied-Reasons.pdf
In this document the spiders are referred to as braces or cross pieces.
These modifications were made to reduce the incidences of bio-film build causing odors and corrosion of the spiders.
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Please note that this is is the judge's 'decision' and reflects what she understood the Whirlpool representatives to have said.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This should mean that the incidents of spiders corroding and fracturing on Whirlpool machines built after 2008 should now be very rare! This will of course also apply to their Kenmore 'cousins' the He2's, 3's, 4's, and 5's. Only time will tell!
It should also mean that the number of incidents of foul odors should also be reduced, quite significantly I would think should what Whirlpool be claiming be anywhere near accurate.[/FONT]

 

[Jake]

Yes thats good to know, but this very long thread started with the Kenmore 417 made by Frigidaire, and the Frigidaire models themselves. Whirlpool and Frigidaire are 2 completely different manufacturers, and as you can see from this thread the Frigidaire ones outweigh the Whirlpool ones by more than double.

Jake

 

[biguggy]

Agreed.
I put it in because it shows that one manufacturer has tried to do 'something' about the problems. As far as I am aware none of the other manufacturers' have.
Frigidaire front loaders have been about a little longer than Whirlpool and as such one would expect them to figure more prominently in the numbers. Add to that Whirlpool changed the design of the spider for the Duet Sport (Kenmore He2) before it came out and I cannot recollect having seen a post on any thread with a 'Sport' (He2) spider failure. On the other hand we purchased our oldest Frigidaire (Kenmore) in May 2001 we have a relative who purchased a much different looking model in 2010 but investigation showed that the guts (inner and outer drums) were still the same part numbers. Now as I believe the problems of spider corrosion and foul smelling build ups in the recesses of the spider are more problems to do with geometric design (drainage as Whirlpool call it) than corrosion resistance of the material it would appear that Frigidaire have done nothing to address the problems.
One thing Sears and Frigidaire have done in Canada (Not the US) is to make a 'tub kit' available through Sears Parts Canada, which comprises inner and outer drums and the pulley, and they (Sears) sell it for less than the price they charge for just the inner drum and spider assembly. I have fitted a couple of them.