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I just effected a repair on my Margherita 2000. To make a long story short, there was a coin in the pre-filter at the foot of the machine, but after continued frustration with the program selection knob spinning and the machine not discharging water, I tipped the machine on its right side (bad mistake) and disassembled the entire water pump. Inside the pump’s housing, there was a small plastic toy jammed in the blades of the pump, so I removed it and made sure the blades were free, etc.
Everything turned out okay, and I’m assuming the machine will perform properly, but during the repair, when the machine was on its side, a rather large amount of fabric softener leaked out across all of the electrical switches and wiring connections for the various control knobs and buttons along the front panel of the machine. At this point, fabric softener is oozing out of all of the button/knob recesses.
I’ve tried (nearly successfully) to completely remove the front panel for easier access to and work on the buttons and knobs, but I can’t figure out how to disassemble a single one of the switches. For the moment, the machine is resting on the ground on its front side to allow some or most of the fabric softener to slowly drain out, but I hesitate to put the machine in use with any of the fabric softener still present in these important switches.
Would it be advisable to just get out as much of the liquid as possible and then carry on with my life, or can anyone here provide a hint as to how to disassemble any or all of the control knobs and switches so that a more thorough cleaning can be done?
Re: Ariston Margherita 2000 AL 129X control buttons
Not sure what to tell you exactly, Jaso.
The individual switches are not designed to be dismantled. They can be prised out of the control panel with gentle persuasion from a flat bladed screwdriver, but I suspect that you’re not going to achieve much.
Consider, however, that fabric conditioner is basically grease and perfume, with a low water content. The water will evaporate off fairly quickly – the sticky stuff won’t. The correct answer is probably to leave it with the lid (and power!) off for a few days and then get a safety check carried out – your local service engineer should be able to carry out earth and insulation tests for you. Click the link below to find a UKW engineer in your area.
The trick next time is to lean the machine back rather than sideways. This may mean disconnecting the hoses for easy access, but has to be better than sideways!
Regards,
Penguin45.Re: Ariston Margherita 2000 AL 129X control buttons
Thank you, Penguin45.
I’ve got the machine back up and running after spending a good deal of time cleaning out the button and knob recesses along the front of the control panel with bits of absorbant paper. I also disconnected some of the wet wire connectors along the back of the switches and dried the metal blades. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be a good way to dry out the corresponding female connector ends buried inside the plastic insulators, so I just had to blow through them to lessen the amount of fabric softener on the metal connectors.
The machine has now washed four loads of laundry, and works as well as always. The sad thing is that I’ve repaired several washing machines and other major household appliances before, but never have done something so silly as this–leaving the detergent tray in place while working on the machine. I did a quick visual inspection of the tray prior to servicing the machine to make sure there wasn’t any detergent still present, but didn’t check the fabric softener reservoir. When the failure occured, it must have been prior to a rinse cycle, and all of the freshly added softener was still in the tray.
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