Pavlina: Life is Not For the Living

I think the title says it all.

Now, I am not really Mrs. Fix-it, but when things break….

When I was in Seattle, what, almost a month ago now! The washing machine “would not drain”. Okay…so Jason went home and reported back to me it was the lid switch. It had gone bad, but if you put in a bit of paper or something and wiggled it just so, the problem was solved. Me, I didn’t care one way or the other, honestly. I don’t do laundry at the house, Jason does and Aubrey usually does the kid’s. Problem was, when Jason went away and I had to do some laundry. I broke the silly jury-rigged thing ASAP. Oh damn, now I had a washing machine tub full of disgusting wash water and towels. Grrrrrrr. I tried to fiddle with the lid switch and a rolled up bit of paper to no avail. The darned thing was BROKEN.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should also say the following. We have a newer washing machine/dryer in the garage. I thought it was way too much weight for me and Jason to move alone so I hemmed and hawed my way of out moving the new set in, so the lid switch was never “fixed”. I then tried to Freecycle it, hoping that the Freecycler would help me move the new set into the house and take the old ones away. The moderators at Freecycle wouldn’t let me post the bit about the help as that violated the “no string attached” rule, and apparently folks around here have it too good, as nobody wanted a perfectly good washing machine minus a working lid switch.

I Googled how to fix a lid switch, etc. It seemed an easy repair. I got the model number off the machine, put that into the Sears repair site and found the lid switch. Yup, that looked like the part I needed, It cost around 35 small ones. I looked up directions for replacing the lid switch. I went to two Sears on two consecutive days to secure the needed part. The first day, the Sears did not have the part in stock, but could order it for me. It would take a week. A week? I had a tub full of nasty towels! (Did I neglect to mention that I had removed the sodden towels and I don’t know how many gallons of water from the tub by hand?) So I got the location of another Sears that had the part. Since I had a “free night” I decided that I would disassemble the machine and that way when I got the part the next evening, I could just “pop” it in. Right.

I followed the directions I found on this post: Kenmore 80 series lid switch. The post has sentences in it like:

First of all, unplug your washer. You will need to remove the console in order to get to the lid switch. I believe your washer has release tabs under the console at each front corner. Simply slide a putty knife straight in from the front at each corner and push in while lifting up. You should feel the release tabs push in and the console will pop up. Or, you may have a console that has removable end caps. They can be removed by gently prying up on the top of them from the rear on each side. You may have to use a small screwdriver for this. The caps should pop right off. Once removed, you will need to loosen a screw under each cap. Once you have the console loosned, carefully lift it up and lay it back over the rear panel of the washer in its resting position. Be careful not to damage the small plastic hinges that hold it in place. Now you will need to perform the following steps:

1. Under the console you will find the lid switch connector. Unplug the switch from the connector.

2. There will be two brass colored clips. You will need to remove these to remove the machine casing. Place a flat blade screwdriver straight down into the opening on top of the washer and into the groove of the clip. Push the screwdriver away from you while holding into the groove and the clip will release.

Okay, very good. My washer ended up having the end caps, but they really didn’t look the way I expected them to.

Those are the screws under the caps you must unscrew to remove the console, or the part of the machine that has all the knobs and whatnot on it. Or, and I could never find a “resting” place for said console. I had to prop it up with a smallish fabric softener bottle once I had it loose. The next step of unplugging the lid switch is very easy, there is only one connection to unplug.

You can see it in this photo quite well. Oh, those are the brass clips the instructions are referring too. This was where I threw the towel in, as it was late, I was tired and could not figure out what brass clips they were talking about! But then inspiration struck! Searching YouTube I came across this video…

I saw those big clips were indeed the clips I was looking for, so I went back in, popped them off, then lifted the cabinet up and off! I had to move the smallish fabric softened bottle to do this. Then I called it a night.

Next day, I got the new part in my hot little hands. I had my two little helpers this time. So I pulled the entire cabinet up and off, then looked where the old lid switch was snuggled up into it.

I unscrewed the grounding screw, unclamped the two areas where it was clamped, you can just see one of them in the photo, and took the old, broken one out.

You can see the printed out directions and I am holding up the defective part.

If you compare the two photos you can see how droopy it is? FAIL! SO I put the grounding screw of the new working part it, clipped the parts that needed clipping. There are also two screws that hold the lid switch in place. All the while, my two little helpers were awesome! They held the cabinet up so I could do all this (our laundry room is tiny!), then I put the cabinet back in place, clipped the connection back in place, put the brass clips back in and the cabinet was back on! Here is a once photo of the lid switch in place.

Then I put the console back on, replaced the end caps, plugged it back in (important) and ran a short test cycle.

We did it!

I think the kids were just happy that mommy was so happy.

This was very very very easy to do. My goodness, was it ever easy. Hope this helps!

Edit: Did you find this helpful? I really hope you did. Drop me a note if you did, thanks!

Tags:   adventures · funny18 Comments