I had a bit of smoke too, but it went away. Could be burning off.

My issue now is that the spin winds up and then shuts down before continuing into high spin. My first thought was resistence, so I took it all apart and it checked the way it should be. Shaft and sleeve were correct. I've tested different tightening torques on the pulley wheel bolt. When loose it went well on dry test. I now have an ohmmeter to check inertia switches for open circuit but I lost that science book years ago.

Here's a couple YouTube uploads:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENFC1aoKCk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9symI3GaAk

Decided to revist this thread after the recent shutdown of megaupload and the inability of people to access the repair files. I've been receiving requests all along and that is continuing after the shutdown as well.

Will be setting up a new downloadable link within the next few days, hopefully. Seems the info is still in demand and justifies creating a new link.

Last time I checked in late December, 2011, the megaupload link had 790 downloads. Hope the files provided some help to all those do-it-yourselfers.

Remember, the files are not all-encompassing and do not cover every aspect of the repair in detail. No surprise that the bearings are the key to the repair - removal & re-seating. Goog is a good place to find alternative methods for removal and re-seating.

My Neptune still running strong & leak free.

Email still active: indy606@hotmail.com

I'm unable to download file - is it still avaialble?

Many thanks to the folks who posted on this string (and some others). Our 13.5 year old Maytag Neptune washer sounded like a jet engine during take off when it went into the spin cycle - the bearings were shot.

I looked at the Tony Tool to do the bearing replacement, and I'm sure it's great, but I just had a hard time spending that kind of $$ for a tool I'd use once, and the thought of renting it and worrying about late fees could be a problem (I don't always control my schedule). So, I bought the bearing kit from e.b.a.y for $17.88... and tried to get most of the parts to build the home made press tool. Unfortunately, I couldn't get all of the right parts at the Home Depot near me. I tried building something similar with kludged together components but wasted a lot of time on that (the overall bearing job took 7 hours when you include trips to the hardware store - and a lot of trial and error while getting the techniques down).

I just couldn't get the bearings to stay centered and aligned when I tried to install them so the pvc press/install tool didn't work for me. I did get the job done though, and here's what worked for me... and it worked pretty effectively.
- Soak the old bearings with PB Penetrating Oil for at least 30 minutes (this was a must - I tried removing the bearings without it at first and all the pounding in the world wouldn't get them out).
- Use an internal bearing puller to remove the rear bearing (I used the Harbor Freight "Blind Hole Bearing Puller", $60 after 20% off coupon). About 20 or 30 whacks with the slide hammer and the bearing came out.
- Remove the front bearing (from the rear of the tub) by hitting it with a 1.5" x 6" steel pipe from the hardware store (I got it from the Home Depot plumbing section). I put a 1.5" steel cap on the end to give me something to strike with a mini-sledge hammer. About another 20 or 30 whacks on the front bearing and it was out.
- Cleaned everything up with a 2" wire brush on the drill ($1.49 at Harbor Freight).
- Grease up the race and outer surface of the rear bearing.
- Using the old bearing as something to strike against, I drove in the new rear bearing - being careful to work my way around the bearing to be sure it was going in straight. This worked out pretty well - the only "issue" was holding the old bearing in place while making sure I didn't hit my fingers with the hammer... but even that wasn't a big problem.
- From the electrical section of the hardware store, get 2 of the, 3/4" gray PVC pipe/conduit couplers and you'll need about 1.5" of the gray PVC pipe. These pieces, when assembled together, will keep the Maytag spacer in place and aligned while you drive in the front bearing. It's a perfect fit and it will be long enough to hold both the new front bearing and the old bearing (which is used as something to strike against while you drive in the new bearing). This is great as you won't keep dropping the old bearing like I did with the rear bearing.
- Grease up the outer surface of the new front bearing and the front race.
- Connect the couplers and pipe together (they don't need to be glued), put the Maytag spacer on the PCV pipe (beveled side in first - pointed to the rear bearing) then the new bearing, followed by the old front bearing... then slide the whole thing in through the front of the tub.
- Hammer on the old bearing to seat the new one. I removed the old bearing regularly to check the progress and to be sure the new bearing was going in straight. Near the end of seating the bearing, I removed the PVC pipe regularly to see how far I had to go. The Matag spacer will drop when you do that, but it doesn't drop much and it's easy to realign everything... just start the PVC pipe back in the the front new bearing, and use a screwdriver down the center of the PVC to lift the Maytag spacer while you slide the PVC pipe back down into the Maytag spacer to the rear bearing...then put the old bearing back on the PCV pipe and continue to hammer on the old bearing until the new bearing seats.
- Install white spacer clip with flat ends pointed towards front of tub if it's an old design seal (mine was the older design).
- Put a thin layer of rtv around the inner lip of the hub and install the seal. If it's the new design, a white plastic cap/install tool is included with the kit. If it's a older design that uses the spacer, use the old front bearing as something to strike against when seating the seal.
- Remove the old metal flange from the spindle on the inner tub (and remove the old O ring if it's a newer design).
- Use the wire brush to clean up the spindle and clean off the debris.
- Install new O ring on the spindle if new design.
- Lightly grease up the spindle.
- Transfer the metal flange from the installed seal to the spindle, seat it... and I added a little extra grease to the inside of the seal and the flange.-
- The tub dropped right in.

As a final note, when I put the black pulley (for the drive belt) on the back of the spindle, the plastic teeth on the pulley didn't mesh as nicely with the metal teeth on the spindle as they did when they came off. If I ever need to do this job again, I suspect I'll be buying a new pulley.

Anyway, with what I know now, and with the parts I now have, I could do this job in the 1.5 hour range that folks talk about... but this first time took a whole lot longer since I didn't have the right "tools" the first time around. Considering how much money I saved though, I'm a very happy camper.

I'd again like to thank everyone who contributed to this string (especially for the tip about the spacer install tool - the 3/4" electrical conduit couplers were perfect - I didn't think I could accurately replicate crystal368's wooden dowel tool and this worked out well for me to do the same thing).

The washer is now as quiet as it was when it was new- and my cost was about $100 - most of which was the bearing puller. Not too bad... :)

Yep - in the kit from Harbor Freight, I used the largest bearing of the 4 bearing pullers. In it's closes configuration it measures 1 & 1/8" across.

On the plus side, it's been 17 months of great operation from the washing machine...but it's recently started making noise in the spin cycle again. So, I'm going to be replacing the bearings again. At east this time I can do it pretty quickly.