After ignoring for a couple of years that the bearings were bad on our Whirlpool Cabrio washer and just closing the door to the laundry room, it started slinging grease underneath during the spin cycle. Knowing that the cost to call out a repairman would be close to the cost of a new washer, I decided that it would be a nice Saturday project after reviewing AppliancePartsPros’ repair video. The bearing & tub seal kit and bearing installation tool arrived in two days. I’ve done a lot of self-repairs over the years by following repair videos and I have to say AppliancePartsPros’ video for this repair is one of the best I’ve used. I simply took my tablet to the laundry room and followed the video step-by-step. The repair is pretty involved but doable for anyone who wants to tackle it. The washer is now quiet and I wonder why I waited so long to repair it. Here are a few pointers based on my experience:
1) Since the bearings had been bad for a couple of years, our drive shaft was in pretty bad shape. I used the jack and 2x4 method shown in the video to remove the tub. However, after jacking up the tub to the point that the tub bottom was flush with the bottom of the jack, the tub still had not popped free. I realized that if I tried a 1x4 instead of a 2x4 to give me a little more jacking range the 1x4 would break. I took one of the bearing seating parts from the bearing installation tool and balanced it on top of the drive shaft, and balanced the jack on top of the bearing seating part, and the tub popped free after just a few more turns on the jack.
2) When installing the bearings with the bearing installation tool, make sure you crank it down until you can’t turn the nut anymore. I am always worried about tightening too much, so I turned the nut to where the lower bearing was seated well but not until I couldn’t turn the nut anymore. When attempted to install the drive shaft, I couldn’t seat it properly against the upper bearing. So I knocked out the drive shaft and reseated the bearings, this time turning the nut until I couldn’t turn it anymore. The drive shaft easily seated properly after doing this.
3) Before disconnecting the recirculation hose at the top of the tub, make sure you remove the recirculation hose clamp that is about halfway down the recirculation hose. You will have to remove the back of the washer to get to the clamp. I didn’t and when I pushed the recirculation hose out of the way while struggling to remove the tub, I cracked the recirculation hose just above the clamp. Of course AppliancePartsPros had me a new hose in two days.
4) After you finish the repair, make sure you run the automatic diagnostic test to make sure everything is working properly. It’s implied but not explicitly stated in the video. I thought about skipping it but went ahead and ran it. That is how I found out I cracked the recirculation hose. If I had not run it I would have had a laundry room full of water with the first load of clothes. As it was, it wasn’t too much to clean up.