Laundry machine drum stuck/wont open
Hello everyone!
The drum of the laundry machine seems to be stuck on its "back" instead of the position in which i could take the laundry out(wgere the flaps are). I tried rotating it manually but it doesnt work.
Does anyone have any idea how i could fix this? Any help would be very very much appreciated.
Solution Summary
AI-generated from this discussion
This thread was marked as solved. Here's a summary of the problem and the fix, generated from the discussion below.
Top-loading washing machine drum jammed by opened drum flap and trapped laundry
- The problem
- The top-loading washing machine drum stopped with the flaps inaccessible and could not be rotated by hand to unload the washing.
- Likely cause
- Confirmed cause was the drum latch/flap coming undone during use, allowing laundry to spill out underneath and jam the drum. Bearing seizure was suggested initially, but this was not the actual fault in this case.
- What fixed it
- The blockage was cleared by removing some trapped items through the drain opening, taking off the side panel, laying the machine on its side, and manually working the drum back into the correct position while rotating the drive wheel/belt area. The remaining laundry was then recovered. The poster later inspected it and carried out trial runs.
- Checks to try
- Drum would not rotate manually
- Confirmed trapped laundry had jammed the drum after the latch came undone
- Inspection after freeing the drum
- Trial runs completed after reassembly
- Machine used twice afterwards and worked normally
- Parts or tools mentioned
- Side panel
- Drain hole/pipe
Safety: If the drum jams again or the latch appears loose or worn, further diagnosis should be carried out by a suitably qualified appliance engineer.
5 Answers
Hello there. Has the washing machine been very noisy on spin recently? It's possible if the drum bearings were badly worn that they have eventually seized up. Otherwise the only other explanation I can think of is that the latch has somehow come open and the laundry has spilled out at the bottom causing it to all jam up.
If it is the latter, then when you try to move it backwards and forwards it should feel as though the thing that is stopping it is fairly soft, which of course it would be because it would be your laundry. If the drum cannot be forced around then you have a major problem and it would most probably need completely stripping down.
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Hello!
The issue was indeed that the latch came undone so that the laundry spilled out and jammed the drum.
After forcing a sock and some swim trunks out the drain hole/pipe we took the side pannel off, and after laying it on the side to have gravity help us we managed to shimmy the drum into the correct position and recovering the rest of the laundry.
While he was rotating the wheel where the motor/drum strap is i manually tried pushing the drum from the top. Thankfully it worked so the issue was resolved with minimum casualties(the sock and swim trunks got ripped).
Could have been a much worse and a much more expensive lesson.
Consider this problem solved.
Thanks for the update? Are you going to continue using the washing machine, or is it knackered now?
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I will continue using it since upon inspection and some trial runs it worked normally.
I have used it 2 times after this and it worked fine.
Maybe i didnt close it right or something? Or one of the pieces of clothing didnt agree with it somehow? No idea really.
Thankfully this is just a work appartment where i stay for a month or two a year, the washer i have at home is a front load Gorenje one which works perfectly. Not this topload Whirlpool garbo.
Yes I was concerned as to what caused the catch to come open in the first place. If it was simply that you didn't close it properly then obviously as long as you don't do it again you should be okay. But if there is something wrong with it then it could happen again. I suppose the only thing you can do is just very thoroughly inspect the catch prod and poke it. If it seems okay with nothing loose or worn then hopefully be fine.
Hoover made a top loader in the 1970s which was very prone to this happening. People kept forgetting to close the latch and everything jammed solid. But Hoover redesigned the whole catch system so that it was impossible to start the machine unless everything was closed properly. You would hope that any relatively modern top loading washing machine would be designed in the same way.
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