Bosch 00648264 Clamp OEM Part

I saw a tube video of a guy that replaces the boot without taking any of the washer apart. The boot was no problem, I had the old one off and the new one on in 20 minutes... The rear wire/spring clamp I found impossible to do. the spring is so hard to stretch. I tried till both of my thumbs were bleeding from the pressure. So I took off the top control panel, had access to the top of where the boot clamp groove is. I took one end of the wire off the spring, lubed it up with dish soap, put it around the bottom and sides and stretched the spring enough holding the end of the spring with one side of small needle nose pliers and vice grips on the wire part. It literally took all my strength to stretch that spring about an inch and a half to connect to the wire. Rear clamp done. The front wire clamp was just as hard, so I took the old rear clamp which was longer and made a new front wire clamp that I only had to stretch the spring about an inch. Bosch has those springs ridiculously tight.

This was the first problem with our Bosch 500 series front loader in 11 years! Boot gasket and clamps arrived quickly and were the correct parts. Removed washer top and control panel OK but bottom front access panel was just a plastic snap on affair and I broke off one of the tabs when pulling off. Why can't they just use a couple of screws instead? Once the access panel was off the door came right off and the old boot gasket (lots of yucky stuff on the inside) came out. New boot gasket fit nicely on the drum and the inner spring clamp went on easily. The outer spring clamp for the door was a real pain, finally needed another pair of hands to assist and lots of arm strength to pull spring open enough to seat it properly. Washer is like new, runs great! Worth the effort. Just need a star drive screwdriver.

I ordered the parts, watched a video of how to do it, I saw it was kind of difficult, and having no experience in these kind of fixings, I called a friend to help with the difficult part, which is mainly the big clamp and the small clamp, that made my job really easy, and the results were perfect, the parts worked well. I didn't know the boot came with the two clamps, and I've ordered the clamps separately, so now I'm going to have to returned them. That was my only inconvenience.

Took sometime to research front loader washing machines. Found out that it is best to remove the top control panel up and out of the way, however I did not disconnect any controls after of course unplugging the machine. Next was to remove the door and the front panel for access to the tub and gasket. I also found that this particular machine has 2 concrete balancers that have to be removed to put the gasket on! The hardest part was putting the spring clamp into place. I separated one side of the spring and bent it so to be able to stretch the spring over! The rest was putting it back together and doing the same with the front spring clamp! Work great now!

Bought a new door gasket an new rings in case they were rusted out. It was easy to install the rubber door gasket .The rings was very difficult to get back on, but finally got it on. That took the longest.