Washing machine repair

OK, for any single guys who happen to be reading this, or perhaps married guys who haven't had the experience yet, let me explain something.

You know nothing about washing machines.

You may have been doing your own laundry for years, or may have never looked inside of one.  Doesn't matter.  Washing machines are a woman's domain.

Until it quits, then you better be an expert.  Our Kenmore make everything cleaner with lots less water and soap miracle worker started making a funnier than usual noise.  I said it that way because when this one starts the spin cycle It makes the windows rattle in my office.  It make a little noise elsewhere, but there seems to be a direct link to my office.

When we first got it the laundry room had a concrete floor.  Nothing vibrated.  But when we moved the laundry room it was not on a wood beam floor. It didn't like the move and was constantly trying to walk back to the old laundry room.

I finally convinced the laundry lady to let me bolt it to the floor.  It hasn't tried walking away since then.

But like I said, it started making a new noise, then it stopped making noise and flashed an error code. With clothes and water in the machine.

The laundry lady was not pleased.

So I did some diagnosis.  OK, WE did some diagnosis. She found the owner's manual which wasn't a lot of help.  The answer to almost everything is call Sears service.  Well ... our local Sears store sells them, but they are not a service center.  So I did some more looking and poking.  The code (once we started looking at the right one) seemed to suggest a drain problem. I checked hoses, looked poked and prodded.  I decided the either the drain pump motor or the relay on top of it was the culprit ... and finally noticed this big plug at the lowest point of the machine.

I said to myself "I bet that is a drain."  So I got a couple buckets and drained it.  Then I removed the plug all the way and found a debris screen in the inlet of the drain pump.  In the debris screen I found this

(that's in a gallon ice cream bucket)

14 quarters, a similar number of dimes, several nickels and pennies, a couple ink pens, a 1/4 self-tapping screw driver adapter, a drywall screw, ear plugs, a push pin ... oh yeah, and a seam ripper and wedding ring.  I was SURE GLAD to see the last two.  Because I KNEW they were not in MY pockets.

I was a hero for finding the wedding ring.

I then pulled the inlet hose off and found a couple safety pins and such.

But we still hadn't figured out the problem.  Like a dummy I put it all back together and tried it again.  15 minutes later, once we got all the water drained again, I took the pump apart.  The impeller was broken. Probably some foreign object got into it ... like that screw driving adapter with all the extra marks on it like something beat on it for a while.  Like an impeller.

Searsparts.com has 7 million parts.  But none of these in stock in a store within 100 miles.  So Monday our new $90 with shipping pump should be here. Before I install it I think I'll run the drain hose and check for dimes, etc. And then I can go back to knowing nothing about washing machines