Washing Machine Drive Belt? (Three week old baby!)

[Octoposse]

Indesit washing machine just packed up, no doubt worked to death by amount of washing generated by three week old baby!

Motor is working (can hear it) but drum doesn't revolve (although does by hand - not jammed).

Presumably a drive belt??

Any pointers to resolve? Likely to be idiot proof enough for me to have a go to save some dosh?

[pacman1]

Sounds like the drive belt. My ex always used to overload the w/m by cramming as much as she could in it.
You can pick 'belts up from a small independent quite cheaply.
If fixing it yourself, I noticed when I did the belt on my tumble dryer that you need to start unscrewing the sides from one particular corner and work round. Pick the wrong corner, and you'll find the screws you need to get at are awkward to access inside the machine, until you take the previous side of first. hth.

[odyssey2200]

I bought some spares off these guys

http://www.espares.co.uk/search/washing-machines/p...


They were brilliant!

[Wings]

Help, advice, spares and first class service.

http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/

[skeggysteve]

Use your common sense and get the sides/back off the machine - your a bloke you can't let a machine beat you!

If the belt has broken it will be in there somewhere.
Take the belt to a local motor factors (or as a last resort Halfords) and they should be able to find one of the same length - it won't have to be exact as there should be some adjustment in the machine.

[eastlmark]

if the belt has broken, there will be a reason for it.

If the belt is just off it may be due to out of balance load or if belt is frayed slightly. if ist less then around 5 years old, the belt will be elasticated- no adjustment- and sometimes very difficult to stretch the new one on.
Its just the back panel on Indesits, sides dont come off. just one other thing. Unplug it from the mains first.

[Kermit power]

Check the bearings on the drum whilst you're in there. We had exactly the same thing, and I replaced the belt, only for the new one to be off within a few days. Turned out the bearing was shagged, so I could've carried on for ever replacing belts and not fixing the problem.

[Octoposse]

Thanks good people . . . . fixed.

Belt wasn't even snapped . . . just come off.

Really really poorly designed and engineered - at first I thought there must be a part missing, but there wasn't. I'm astonished they last a month.

Anyway, the pile of unwashed baby clothes has gone down and my stock has risen!

[skeggysteve]

Octoposse said:

Really really poorly designed and engineered

Thanks for the update - many people don't bother or, like me, forget!

Glad you got it sorted and are getting the brownie points!

As for the poor design - just remember most modern things are designed by accountants not engineers!

[odyssey2200]

If the belt has ome off once, it might be worth getting a spare one anyway.

It probably came off because it has stretched.