I can’t believe I forgot to mention this! Last Wednesday, December 1st, I repaired our washing machine. My wife put a big carpet in the washing machine about 3 months ago. One of those mats that’s bigger than a welcome mat but smaller than a remnant … I don’t know what you call them, but smaller than a throw rug … Anyway, when that thing spun to dry, you’d think terrorists were attacking my basement … So ever since then, when you went to fill the washer with water, it would just leak out the bottom … I figured it had hit the sides or something and chewed a hole in the basket … So, after a couple months of her taking the laundry to relatives, and the constant nagging that only wives know how to do, the guilt mounted and I went to work on the foul machine …
First thing that tells you I’m not a washer repairman is that I started in the back … Removing screws and plastic snaps so I could get in there and see what was what … As I pried up the back, I noticed there were wires going to the control panel, so I figured I would have to remove the cluster plugs and pull them through … As I was removing the cluster from the motor, I noticed some weird looking thing going to the panel, and it didn’t look like an easy item to remove and put back … To get a better look at it, I pryed the top of the washer off even more … The top is held on by a pressure fit … When I got the four metal springing things that held the top on free to take a better look at this thing, I realized I could just push the top up from the front of the washer and gain access into the basket … DUH!
So I get to work in there … removing the filter on top, the agitator in the middle and there are the three bolts holding the basket on … Either Governor Arnold or the old doorman from 15 North put on these bolts … One was so difficult to get off, I actually broke it … So, I pull the basket out, and I see no big gouges in the side or anything to indicate why water was escaping it … Maybe it was the holes all around it that led me to believe it didn’t hold water either … So now I am in the next chamber (where the water actually is held) and there is a rubber thing that affixes to the center and this inner basket … It’s held on with thin metal bands, kinda like the ones that hold your radiator hoses on in your car … The bottom one had separated from the outer basket … So, I removed the top band so I could get the rubber thing off and get a good look at it … Didn’t look damaged, looked okay … I figured the carpet fiasco simply pulled this rubber thing out of the metal band … So I put it back together very tight, and then assembled the rest of the washer that I had disassembled (Johhny 5) and vwahlah … The washer has been working fine ever since …