Do-It-Yourself Story

The mounting plate is cast and will fail while coming apart in chunks and pieces. These pieces will involve the pump and will cause general instability while in the spin cycle. My approach was to replace the plate and while in there the usual: bearing, seal, tub bearing split ring, belt, drum stability mounts. Tip #1: You will need a 1 11/16 wrench to remove the drum nut. I went to the hardware store and bought a box wrench for $26 and cut it down with a hacksaw so that it would fit within the space allowed. I hammered on this with a lead hammer. Don't be shy when hammering, the nut is on there and it will take some effort to break it loose. You'll notice that the wrench here is about $80. Tip #2: make sure that the nut is on there tight when putting things back together. Hammer on it, not a lot, but, enough to make sure that it is on there tight. I missed this at first and got excess noise during the agitation cycle. Once tightened things were as usual.