11021492311 Kenmore Washer - Overview

ordered hub and it shipped quickly. I was able to put the hub in place and screw the screws in. you want to tighten them down slowly and go around to each screw tightening a little at a time so you don't break the hub. as you tighten the screws down the hub slides down flush. its impossible to just push the hub on with your hand. Buttoned ... Read more it back up and got caught up on laundry. good day when the washer is fixed.

Removed center cap, loosened center nut, pry lightly up on center plate and tap center nut. Center plate comes loose, remove nut, remove center plate. Pry lock clip out and remove, remove screw with electric impact (screw drive will work, but slower), remove drive hub. Install new drive hub (be sure to check screw hole alignment), install ... Read more and tighten screws (be sure to follow a skip pattern and bring it down even), install lock clip, install center plate, install and tighten nut, replace center cap. Done!

This was a learning experience but it appears to have worked out in the end. Our 3 1/2 year old washer was not agitating much and I attributed that to a loose bolt. I would tighten the bolt and it would work ok for a load or two and then stop agitating. I would find that the bolt was loose again. I took a number of steps to try to get ... Read more the bolt to stay on tight - threadlock, a new bolt, more threadlock, and applying progressively more force on the bolt, with no better results. Yet the repair guys on you tube were saying the bolt only needs to be snug, not super tight - something was amiss. I even went so far as to secure the basket with a rope so I could use two hands on the socket wrench (please don't do this). But when I tried the washer again there was no agitation at all! I observed the agitation output in manual test mode and the bolt was turning in lock step with the shaft but the agitator wasn't turning at all. That's when I suspected that the problem was actually a worn lower agitator. Trouble was that now I couldn't seem to get the bolt off. Turning the wrench caused the shaft itself to rotate so I couldn't loosen the bolt from the shaft. I thought I broke the washer. Then I considered that maybe the shaft was rotating because the washer was in an agitation mode when I turned it off. I went back into manual test mode, made the washer spin, then turned it off. Fortunately, this worked. The shaft was again stationary and, albeit with great difficulty, I got the bolt off.

I removed the agitator, and as a pro would have figured out long before, the ridges inside the top of the lower agitator were almost completely worn down. I realized then that the contact between these ridges and the splines on the shaft is what is supposed to cause the lower agitator to move with the shaft. The purpose of the bolt is just to keep the agitator in the correct position and from coming off the shaft. I had been trying to compensate for the worn agitator ridges by over-tightening the bolt, creating some contact at the top of the shaft. This would work for a little while, then the agitator would start slipping, and the slipping agitator was acting just like a wrench loosening the bolt (until my stupid rope trick, that is.)

So I ordered a new agitator (only the lower agitator was bad, but the price of an entire agitator isn't a lot more than just the lower part and I was reading that the upper agitator parts will wear over time) and another new bolt (because my repeated attempts to over-tighten the first one I ordered had split the rubber gasket apart and worn the bolt head).

The new agitator fit snugly on the splines of the shaft so I sensed no need to use excessive force on the bolt. Just an easy one-handed snug tightening with the socket wrench, using the other hand to hold the lower agitator. The washer is now working again.