Tag maytag performa snubber

Once again the wonders of the internet have saved me significant money.  As I mentioned last week I did some research on the net for possible causes of our Maytag Performa washer banging on spin cycle to the degree where it literally walked across the floor.  I found a message board that indicated that a likely cause of this problem is a cheap little plastic piece called the “snubber”.  Well I ordered a new snubber on Friday.  I was surprised to see it show up at my door step yesterday.  I decided to try to tackle the repair last night before Ali got home.

Taking a washer apart was surprisingly easy, at least getting the covers apart.  However once I had the guts exposed things became a little more interesting.  There are 6 high tension springs that are attached to the washing tub that connect it to the frame.  Removing these springs required a vice grips and a lot of forearm torque.  Getting to the springs in the back was especially challenging.  After that there are two hoses to disconnect.  Then you flip the washer up so you have access to the bottom where there is a belt you have to walk off of a pulley.  Once the belt is removed the entire washing tub is free to be removed from the machine.  It’s not super heavy but big and cumbersome to pull out with only one person.

Once I removed the tub I saw that the bottom of the washer was filled with little white plastic shavings, another sure sign that a bad snubber was in the mix.  Once I had the tub upside down as shown in the picture, getting the snubber out only involved removing 6 small bolts that held it in place.  I swept up all the plastic shavings, slapped the new snubber in and reversed the installation process.  Getting the springs reattached was a bit more challenging than getting them off as you can imagine.  While I had the unit apart I used the shop vac to sweep it out and also cleaned nasty areas of the washing tub that would never see attention otherwise. 

I wanted to test the washer to make sure I had indeed fixed the problem.  I left the front off of it so I could verify everything was attached correctly and there were no leaks.  I threw a load of towels in which has been a nightmare for us since the washer started walking.  I anxiously awaited the spin cycle to hit.  The unit started spinning and the washer remained stationary, yes!  I was quite proud of my repair,  Not only did I save us $1000 or so, I fixed the thing for $10 and two hours labor. Nice…..  Pictures of the entire project can be found here.

Ali came home just as I was wrapping the project up.  When she walked in the door she saw the washer apart.  I proudly told her that I replaced the snubber.  She had a sour look on her face like she just smelled a fart.  “What’s wrong?” I asked.  Ali says, “I was hoping you had at least made the salads for dinner”  WTF!  I told her I just spent two hours busting my ass fixing the washing machine and she was pissed because I didn’t make salad?  She said she didn’t know that replacing a snubber was  a big  job.  I asked her if she thought that ripping a washing machine apart was easy?  Ali realized she stepped on a land mine and apologized for saying something that turned out to be dumb.  Later when she saw the results of the spin test she was quite happy that I fixed the washer instead of slicing tomatoes.    I had a rather large chip on my shoulder for awhile.

Yesterday was my first day of taking a training class in a remote classroom experience.  I thought it may have been lame or not as effective as my prior training experiences in a conventional classroom.  Well I am happy to report I am now a remote classroom believer.  It was great.  I was sitting at my home pc in my shorts and a baseball hat while taking the training.  I don’t ever want to do conventional training again.  I got the same info as I would the regular way the difference is since I am at home I can tune out when the instructor is dealing with subjects that have no interest to me.  They can’t see you. As a student I was remote controlled to a lab pc in Tampa and the instructors pc in Wilimington, Delaware.  For the voice part of the experience you dial in to a conference call. 

The conference call part concerned me because I have the 500 minute Vonage plan.  With Vonage the clock is always ticking, I think even with 800 calls.  I could gave easily blown through all of our 500 minutes in the three days of training.  Skype to the rescue.  I never used Skype before but read that I could use Skype to call 800 numbers and there is no charge.  I set it up over the weekend and used it to dial in for the training.  It worked great.  I heard the instructor over my pc sound system and if I needed to talk I unmuted my headset mic and could chime in.  My dual screen set up at home came in quite handy as well so that I could split the two machines I was remoted into between them.  In the “class” there were two students physically in the classroom and 7 of us there virtually.

I am a huge fan of the virtual training environment.  I think now that it was dumb that I had concerns about it.  In most any other form of communication I participate in, electronic or virtual is almost always the preferred method I like to go.

I posted a few pics from the beach at Lauderdale as well as some shots of the smoke as I drove back across the Alley Saturday evening. Look here.

For those of you that think the Wii Fit workout is too easy I have a challenge for you.  Do the trainer challenges.  Yea they start out easy but if you do them regularly enough they become ass breaking.  Yesterday I did the jackknife and push up challenges.  I had to do 40 of each.  The jack knife is a compound ab exercise where you are lifting both your legs and your shoulder blades off the floor at the same time.  After awhile your abs feel like they are tearing.  You wouldn’t think the push up challenge would be hard, especially for a 300 veteran like myself.  Well when you are doing the push ups on the Wii Fit board your hands are much closer together than with a regular push up.  On top of that you are pausing at both the top and bottom of the movement which cranks the exertion level up significantly.  By the time I was done with both challenges I was breathing hard, real hard.

I saw the season finale of Heroes last night.  Spoiler ahead, be warned.  Wow has that show gotten dumb.  Nothing makes any sense.  All of a sudden Hiro gets nosebleeds and ear bleeds when he stops time?  Why?  They never explain it.  The finale was filled with dumb things like this but the most stupid was at the very end.  Syler, the super villain who recently picked up the shape shifting ability which allows him to look like anyone, kills Nathan, the flying senator.  Peter, Nathan’s brother has the ability to absorb other heroes abilities.  He absorbs some of Sylers ability and is able to subdue him.  Peter and Nathans mother is hysterical about Nathans death and says she cant live without him.  She devises this ludicrous plan to have Matt Parkman brainwash Syler into thinking he is Nathan full time.  Parkman doesn’t want to do it but eventually agrees.  Due to the brainwashing Syler shape shifts back to Nathan and now mommy has her little boy back, well a shape shifted, brain washed version of him.  Of course you know this can only wind up badly.  The whole thing was just really, really stupid .  That show has jumped the shark big time.