- This topic has 26 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Well not all of it.
A wire come out of my wife’s bra in the wash and I can only summise that somehow it managed to escape through one of the drain holes in the inner drum. Accordingly the drum now “clicks” when turning and makes a heck of a din on spin.
My question is what is the minimum I need to do to gain some access to the space between the inner and outer drum (if they are the correct terms) to see if I can extract it?
Any help/tips would be appreciated.
Hoover Optima HNF6167
Many thanks
paulus22Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
The first tip is to read the wash labels on most underwired bras, the bit where it says ‘Hand Wash Only’ 😉
The only safe way to wash these items is to place them inside an old pillow case or similar and secure the opening. Bra wires & coins are the most common cause of pump,filter,hose and drum obstruction and blockage..
It really depends where the wire is inside the drum. Sometimes you can get them out by removing the heating element, the downside to that is that you may find it difficult to replace the heater. On the odd occasion they can be fished out through the main black rubber sump hose.
If you are really lucky then it may be poking out of one of the holes in the drum, shine a torch in and have a good look.
Be sure to remove the mains plug if you intend to proceed.
Jim.
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
iadom
Thanks for the reply. Working backwards on your tips:
I have had the torch in – I found one damaged hole (presumably where it escaped) but cannot see where the wire is – certainly not aligned with a hole – but that would be very fortunate. Also I cannot see whether the wire is at the bottom (where I would expect), or anywhere else around the drum.
The sump hose would be good – but presumably the wire would need to be at the bottom first, and close to the sump hole.
If the heater has to be removed what is the difficulty in replacing it?
Finally, if all of these fail – what is left?
And finally-finally, the bra in question is labelled as machine washable (altho the point about a pillowcase is well made) and my wife has been washing her bras this way for 25 years – without such a feak accident. The best suggestion I can give her is to join womens lib! However, in the mean time I need to get this resolved for the sake of our family of five rapidly running out of clean clothes!
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
If you have washed underwired bras for 25 years without mishap then you have been very, very lucky indeed. Almost 50{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of machines I go to have remnants of bra wires inside them even if they have managed to lie out of harms way.
The chances are it will be at the bottom, the heater needs to be prised out and as the heater seal is part of the heater and is secured by compression and also possibly swollen due to heat it can be very hard to get it back in.
If you cannot fish it out from either of these two orifices then you are possibly looking at a complete drum removal and strip down.
The plastic drum lifters are removable on some machines but not sure about this one.
I would go down the heater route myself after checking the sump hose, even if it means you have to replace the heater with a new one.
Jim.
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
Thanks Jim,
I’ll go down the first two routes – if that fails I will look into the cost of a new heater before removing that.
Excellent advice, thanks again.
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
Sump hose off – a piece of the wire now extracted – but not the offending piece. I am trying to remove the heater element – come out about 7 inches but no further. Problem is the seal is still in place. This is proving very difficult to lift because it is recessed. Is this sucker glued on? Should I just hack it off and get a new heater (~£22) or is there a “trick of the trade”.
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
No tricks, you just have to prise it out with a flat bladed screwdriver or similar. The heater plus seal is initially an easy push fit into the hole but when the securing screw is tightened it compresses the seal to hold it in place.
Have a look at this Heater to give you some idea of the arrangement of heater and seal.
Jim.
PS. Are you saying that you have two bra wires in there. 😉
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
Jim,
No I guess the bra wire has been broken by the drum. The piece I have extracted is about 3-4 inches long – which probably leave about 6-7 inches on the remaining piece which is still fouling the drum.
From the diagram it looks like there is a backplate behind the seal onto which the stud (which takes the securing nut – which I extracted first) is welded. Clearly I have extracted the heater up to the middle “u” section. I can see the seal but not the backplate. Does that mean that the backplate is somehow “inside” the aperture? and if so I guess I need to dislodge the seal then wiggle the backplate to draw it through??
One more prompt please before I attack it again.
Thanks for being there
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
When the heater is initially fitted and the nut tightened , it pulls the back plate towards the seal , thus compressing it and this fills the hole and therefore mnaking it watertight .
Unscrewing the front nut does not ( 99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of the time anyway ) , ‘uncompress’ the seal . It will still be tight in the opening . The back plate will still be pulled up tight to the seal as well .
As Jim said , you will need to gently prise out the rubber seal using a flat bladed screwdriver and once the seal starts to come out , the back plate will follow and then you can remove the complete heater element . 😉Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
Nomadpaul, thanks for joining in
I feel a bit thick here. I can only see a black seal at the front of the aperture. This overalps the aperture. I have managed to lift the seal along the bottom edge – but the top edge is too recessed for me to get anything in. When you say that the seal gets compressed what does that mean? Does the seal fit both inside and ouside the aperture making it impossible to pass a tool through the bottom edge to lift the top edge or what? I am failing to understand how this compression seal works. Surely when you compress rubber it expands outwards from the presure but the outside edges (that I can see) are clear of the aperture – all being on the outside.
Lots of head scratching here . . .
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
If you look at this picture, the new heater is on the left, used one to the right. look closely at the rubber seal and you can see the way the used heater seal has swollen under compression to hold it in place. This is why it is difficult to prise it out.
Two different types of heater but the principle is the same.
Jim.
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
That’s fantastic – now I understand!
Flanges all free at the front – definite movement when I waggle the heater, I guess it is just very swollen on the inside. Back to do a bit of screwdriver prodding – I guess I aught to be able to get it right the way though, thereby breaking the internal/edge seal. Then I guess its just brute force!
Will let you know
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
Brute force wins the day! (I pity you guys who have to work on these things all day)
Alas cannot see the offending wire – however good access provided, so I will see if any rotation of the drum can move the offening piece close to the opening.
paulus
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
A picture is worth a thousand words, in fact if you look closely at the old heater you can even see the marks on the seal from the screwdriver I used to prise it out. 8)
If you are really unlucky then the offending piece could be jammed at the back of the drum support, major problems then. 😥
Jim.
Re: My Hoover Optima has eaten my wife’s bra!!
Well . . . the offending piece is clearly well and truly trapped somewhere.
The sounds echo in the hollow drum, but I have a sneaky feeling that it is trapped BEHIND the drum rather than around the drum.
Are we now getting into the realms of the very difficult? What is involved in stripping the drum? Presumably I will need to get the inner drum out of the outer drum to do this now?
The machine is not that old (couple of years at most) and performs very well. If fixable I would rather that than replace it – but big repair bills and cheap replacement products affect the decision.
paulus
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.