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General notes on drum bearing failure and a roughly practical guide to working on one of the easiest machines to repair; other brands can get very involved. THE FIRST THING TO DO IS TO DISCONNECT THE MACHINE FROM THE ELECTRICAL SOCKET. What follows is relevant to the very commonly sold model L612wm16 Curry`s Logik Chinese made machines ( Logik is just a branding name, some other Logiks are Turkish made with different bearings sizes usually based on the Kg capacity ) and it assumes you have of course removed the work top, rear cover and know how to remove the metal front chassis panel. You could with variations use it as a VERY GENERAL guide for some other machines. In an ideal world you really want to catch the machine at the very first sign that the bearings are on their way out. Putting off an ever increasing background squeak ( sounds like a mouse but not to confused with a stretched belt noise ) heard only when the drum revolves on wash programmes is usually a precurser for trouble ahead, then a light sawing noise on spin to a very light rumble ending up as a full on rough rumbling racket and by that late stage it will be very doubtful your bearing change will be successful. So, if your drum is now flapping around inside the tank with loads of up and down play in the drum i.e. is very obviously loose ( 8 times out of 10 upon arrival this was the state of play – try not to be in that boat! ) or the drum is warped and on spin sounds like all hell has broken loose with or without a load forget any chance of this cheap repair: either the bearings have been thrashed and so trashed into shrapnel mode which will damage the bearing shaft and its hub ring and the outer bearing race will be seized in the bearing tube with little no to hope in knocking the thing out OR/ AND the drum spider support has just cracked meaning it is a new drum too ( which I do not sell ) which at 100 something quid, via Partmaster or from elsewhere, kinda makes it an expensive proposition on such cheap machines. BEFORE you buy anything you are well advized to remove the drum pulley bolt which is normally a locktited thread; this is unfortunate and in my view unnecessary but you`ll have what you have! I recommend that you DO NOT ATTEMPT to loosen any drum pulley bolt soley with a ring spanner or a very short extension bar because if the bolt head suddenly shears off ( a complete disaster which can easily happen ) your hand goes smashing into the rear chassis edge where you removed the rear back inspection cover and you will cut yourself badly so use a long extension bar with a decent socket and undo very slowly then slightly retighten then undo further etc…and try to get wd40 onto the tread as soon as you get enough thread unscrewed to do so – if this bolt shears off you are in severe trouble. You lock the pulley in place with a mole grip through two of the pulley spokes to one of the top tank rear fins OR use a roughly triangular piece of oak as a wedge AND keep your fingers out the way. With all these machines they do not actually have the bearings and oil seal officially listed separately, for that see below, ( and some sellers on E-bay selling exactly the same kits at 30+ quid instead of 16 quid ) but what they do have is the complete rear half of the plastic rear tank only with the bearings prefitted at the factory which makes them very expensive machines to get repaired if you went down that route AND you would still have to remove the pulley bolt as just described. The alternative low cost way is to buy the kit of 2 bearings and the oil seal, take the machine apart and remove the 2 front weights remove all the tank screws and remove the front plastic half of the tank having removed the heater, earth and thermistor wires, sump hose, ( on this Logik you do not need to remove the heater ) then remove the drum – if necessary use a piece of wood, preferably oak to whack with a hammer the end of the drum shaft, so with the wood between DO NOT hit metal on metal as you damage the thread to get the drum out, then knock the old bearings out with a thick metal drift, clean the whole inside of the bearing tube area with a cloth, lightly grease the tube where the bearings were knocked out, and gently knock the new ones in by tapping on a drift on the OUTER race of your new bearing then fit the oil seal which is usually thumb pressed in and if not you tap the oil seal down flush with a flat piece of wood on its far outer edges in a cross pattern so the seal goes in nice and straight only having noted how flush the old seal was before – you do not need to use glue. POINTS TO WATCH and why: when removing the old oil seal DO NOT prise it out with a flat bladed screw driver as the oil seal is set in plastic and you will squash/deform the plastic which will mess up your new oil seal sealing ability to protect your new lovely bearings beneath it this is why you rely on the larger worn out bearing being in one piece and not in shrapnel mode in order to knock out that bearing and so the oil seal with it, further, as there is no provision built into the design to knock out a jammed seized outer race ( as per a Hotpoint WM and WMA series for example ) should that bearing be disintergrated into shrapnel hence a rear tank half with factory fitted bearings being the only official replacement part which is why as soon as the bearings audably sound a trite off key, if not before that, you repair it then and do not do the usual consumer thing of continue to grind the machine into oblivion and then try to repair it…..most likely far too late by then and it will then be scrap for the sake of around 14 quid worth of parts and a bit of graft! On rebuild, make sure you lightly grease your new oil seal running lip using a 2 finger scoop of grease AND the cleaned drum shaft hub before putting the machine back together otherwise you will be back to square one in a years time which may well have been the cause of premature failure to begin with at the factory since a great many are deviod of any remains of grease = friction = a nuked oil seal = nuked bearings at circ 3 years old. DO NOT use anything abrasive on the spider bronze or white metal oil seal running hub ring, so if it needs cleaning ( and it will ) just use a soft cloth with a bit of Jiff and use a small flat bladed screw driver to clean off any grunge off the aluminum NEAR the hub running ring AND NOT the delicate oil seal hub ring itself otherwise you will scratch it, any previous oil seal wear marks just leave alone as whatever you do it will only be made worse. White marine grease is pretty good as bought off Ebay for greasing the oil seal and the shaft and the hub running ring.To rejoin the front tank half to rear half clean the TANK SEAL as left in its groove and the front half tank where the two tank shells meet and clean where it will push against the seal with a brass brush and use a clear silicon sealant with gun to run a thickish bead right around over the tank seal then refit this front tank half to the rear half back together in ONE MOTION and refit all the screws DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN them its plastic you are screwing into! Then you can re bolt the weight/s and do not over tighten them either as there are no torque settings published and I wouldn`t trust them even if there were. Double check all hoses and hose clips and whilst you have the front off you might want to check your motor brushes too. If you need new brushes it`ll depend which motor they originally fitted but there are many brushes that will do the job from other brands, such as Indesit and Zanussi, the point being looking up Logik brushes will usually lead you only to a complete new motor for the sake of a £12 pair of brushes.
Curry`s Logik 6kg capacity sized Chinese made machines used 1x 6206zz and 1x 6205zz the oil seal size is 37x66x10/12 ( 37 is the oil seal`s hole size, 66 is the overall diameter and 10/12 is the thickness meaning it is a variable depth fit of between 2mm ) this kit fits models L612WM16 ( a very common model in its day ) and the similar L612wm13. These bearing and oil seal sizes do not fit 8, 9, 10 kg Logik machines but might also fit the 7kg.
Common 6 and 7kg Bush, Electra, Montpellier, White Knight, Russell Hobbs, Servis, 1x Smeg and 1x known rarely seen Teka all made in Turkey Vestel machines used 6206 and 6205 bearings using a 35x62x10 oil seal. Most of those machines are repaired in a similar fashion as per above instructions except it is easier to take the whole tank out to do the job because there is no back panel to remove. The 8kg sized machines tended to use 6306 and 6307 bearings with a 40x66x10/12 oil seal, these tended to be more expensive Chinese made ( rather than Turkish machines ) but with the benefit of a back panel you can remove as per Logik. Most of the Bush and White Knight machines used Selini motor brushes as per the old Brandt machines, the others listed may have used other motors.
Some of the old Bush, Haus e.g.1050w, HEC, Curry`s Essentials 5 kg and Swan machines where actually Haier Chinese / PRC made and had a different oil seal, most of those will be around 15 years old by now. The oil seal used by the majority was 35x56x10 using 6204 and 6205 bearing sizes ( same bearing sizes that fit a Hotpoint WM56 ). Compared to some cheaper rather nasty Western European stuff at the time these were fairly well made machines in their day as far as simple cheap machines go. Most of these used the the brick red brushes Indesit use.
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