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wash machine making loud banging noise during spin
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Wash machine is making a loud banging noise during the spin cycle, not related to it being off balance. I am willing to try changing the shock absorbers; is there anything else it could be?
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Rank: Member
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Joined: 6/5/2011(UTC)
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I'm not going to go through how to take your Whirlpool Duet apart as there are many resources to do that. What I want to tell you is how to take the spider arm off the stainless steel drum.
Our Whirlpool Duet was only two years old and the spider arm broke in three different places. Whirlpool agreed to send us a new spider arm and a new plastic rear tub as we wanted a new bearing. The Spider Arm was part of the stainless steel drum. This seems ridiculous as I only needed the spider arm. I can tell you how to take the spider arm off the drum but when you do this, make sure that you mark which arm goes where as the drum may be balanced but I don't think so.
I am going to get our spider arm anodized and power coated as I thought it would be more resilient to the chemicals in the washing machine. I think that it is a really bad idea to have this part made out of aluminum. I don't think it is the dissimilar metals that are causing the problem but rather the cathode galvanic corrosion that happens to anything that is aluminum when subjected to certain soaps and bleach. I don't think Whirlpool wants you to use bleach and that's why our Duet doesn't have a bleach dispenser. Bleach is apparently really bad on aluminum.
So when I first took off the six screws on the basket, the spider arm still wouldn't come off. I ended taking up the old spider arm to see why. There are dimples where the screws go into the aluminum and you have to gently pry the arm away from the drum with a screwdriver and at the same time you have to take a larger screwdriver to pry the arm away from the drum. I originally thought the arm was somehow fastened to the drum through the shaft but that isn't so, at least not on our Duet.
We are going to get the arm anodized and power coated. They even let you decide on what color you want to use for the power coating. I hope this is going to help but I recognize that this arm should be made out of stainless steel. I think most other machines also have aluminum spider arms and they fail as easily as the Whirlpool Duet. It is like one engineer made a bad decision to use aluminum and all the manufacturers did the same thing. Stupid is as Stupid does I think is the quote.
Hope this information helps you with your Spider Arm. I almost would prefer a Black Widow Spider to this thing.
Daniel
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Rank: Member
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Joined: 7/18/2010(UTC)
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To priusdan
I believe you are ‘on the right track’ as to what causes corrosion of the spiders.
Aluminum, and its alloys are corroded when immersed in an aqueous solution with a pH value above about 8.0 or below about 4.0 (nitric acid is a well known exception). All detergents have to be above about 8.0 or they would not work. The Material Safety Data Sheets put out by Proctor and Gamble state that the pH for one of the liquid ‘Tides’ is 8.0 and for one of the ‘Tide’ powdered detergents as 11.0. Bleach, (sodium hypochlorite) is also very corrosive to aluminum, as is borax. I should add that for corrosion of the spider to take place these levels are considerably above the levels found in a washing machine during the wash/rinse phases of the cycle.
Sodium carbonate (washing soda) and sodium percarbonate found in some laundry aids (Affresh and Oxi-Clean [powder]) are also corrosive to aluminium and its alloys, provided the required concentrations are reached.
I believe the mechanics of the corrosion are as follows.
Even after the fastest spin small quantities of water will remain on the shaft and towards the centre of the spider. Any recesses in the spider close to the centre will aggravate this situation. This water will contain, inter alia, unused laundry aids (detergent, bleach, fabric softener etc), soil, the products of the interactions between the laundry aids and the soil, the products of the interactions between the laundry aids and the chemicals in the ‘tap’ water, and ‘unused’ chemicals in the ‘tap’ water. Should sufficient of these ‘contaminants’ be present the pH of the mixture can, as evaporation takes place, rise to a level where corrosion will take place. A corroded spider from a LG machines can be seen at: -
http://www.viewpoints.com/LG-TROMM-Front-Load-Washers-review-33dc10
and from a variety of machines at: -
http://****************.com/wp/2009/10/28/front-loading-washer-corrosion-contagion-a-menagerie-of-metallic-misery/
For information on galvanic corrosion there is a very good paper, (which also explains why although stainless steel is more noble than aluminum and its alloys galvanic corrosion between the two does not take place) at: -
http://www.unene.ca/un1001/UN1001_Galvanic%20Corrosion.ppt
It also explains that when two dissimilar metals form a galvanic couple the vast majority of the corrosion with take place on the least noble of the two, the anode, at, or extremely close to where they are joined. In the case of the spider and the stainless steel drum this would be at the end of the spider arms where they are connected to the drum. I have seen no evidence that this is where the majority of the corrosion of these spiders takes place. Where was the majority of the corrosion on the spider removed from your machine?
For information on chemical corrosion of aluminium (or ‘micro galvanic corrosion as the author calls it, I grew up calling it ‘pitting corrosion) there is an informative, one page, paper at: -
http://www.sintef.no/static/mt/norlight/seminars/norlight2003/Postere/Gaute%20Svenningsen.pdf
The product of this corrosion is aluminium oxide (Al2O3), the same material that provides the ‘grit’ in sand-paper. Aluminum oxide has very low solubility in water this means that any products of corrosion not adhering to the parent metal or dissolved into solution will be carried about in the ‘water’ of the washer making a very effective lapping compound. In my opinion the soft lips of the shaft seal stand very little chance against such an effective abrasive. Many posters on the internet who complain of failed bearings also note the corrosion of the spider, could the two be linked? I think so.
Perhaps those who claim the seal always fails first are not so incorrect after all?
Anodising the spider will not, in my opinion, slow the corrosion of the spider.
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wash machine making loud banging noise during spin
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