Washing Machine Help Forum

[vicki01]

Hi,
We have a 7 year old Bosch WFL2450GB/01 washing machine which has given great service until yesterday when it started making a grinding noise in the filter/drain pump area.

I checked the filter which is ok, but the impellor (the rotor bit which is on the drain pump) had fallen off its spindle, and the spindle was still turning but hitting against the impellor (which made the noise). I tried putting the impellor back on the spindle, and it stays for a short while but falls off again within about 15 seconds.

Following advice in some other posts here we have removed the drain pump altogether (to check for blockages near/around it) and the pipes etc are all ok. The drain pump is an Askoll 290408 (in case that helps).
There is one o-ring on the spindle, but replacing that has not helped. The spindle has a metal prong which sticks out at the end for about a quarter of its circumference, and this appears to locate into a "groove" in the inner end of the impellor , which is about three quarters of the impellors circumference. Provided the prong locates into the groove then the impellor will turn ok. However, the impellor works its way off the spindle when we start the drain cycle.

We looked at the spindle & impellor but cannot see what is actually meant to hold the impellor onto the spindle ?? Does anyone else know how it works ?

Is this a small part that could be replaced, or will we need to replace the whole drain pump assembly (approx £50 having searched the web).

Thanks for any help!

[Simon46]

Drain pump complete. Check out the Shop link.
Unplug power if you are going to look yourself.

Regards
Simon

[RayJ]

Hi,

Exactly the same happened to ours. I couldn't see how the impellor was fixed, but when rotated by hand after dismantling it didn't have the '2 position' magnetic stop indicating it wasn't tied to the motor shaft correctly. rotating the motor shaft felt good (easy/hard/easy). So - a small pea sized piece of BluTack on the motor shaft end 'cam' drive thing, firmly push the imellor back on and Robert's yer Mothers Brother. That was 2 weeks ago of solid use and no problems so far. I dare say a blob of 'Sticks Like Sh*t' trade sealant or Araldite would do the same job. Saves £50 for a new assembly.

[helo_75]

personally, id disregard this last post as utterly ridiculous

change the pump, its the only way to ensure a lasting repair

[Penguin45]

There is a bit of logic to Helos' post. The impellor allows for the magnetic armature to rotate over 270 degrees before picking up the drive, this is more than two magnetic poles of revolution on the motor. Effectively, this is a "soft start" for the motor. By plugging the back of the impellor, the "free motion" on the impellor is lost. A magnetic pump motor has very little torque, so this loss of free motion will eventually cause the pump to labour, stall and ultimately burn out.

RayJ is advised to replace his pump motor at the earliest opportunity.

Penguin45.