W3740
Any help would be appreciated. Drum is completely stuck. Will not turn at all.
Solution Summary
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This thread was marked as solved. Here's a summary of the problem and the fix, generated from the discussion below.
Miele W3740 drum seized; severe corrosion found after strip-down
- The problem
- The drum on a Miele W3740 was completely stuck and would not turn at all. The owner stripped the machine down to investigate after initial suggestions that either the motor, drum bearings, belt or an internal obstruction could be responsible.
- Likely cause
- After dismantling, the bearings were reported as seeming fine. The strongest supported diagnosis was severe corrosion around the drum shaft seal/related drum components, making the assembly likely uneconomical to repair. Earlier suggestions included seized motor, collapsed bearings, belt fouling the pulley, or an item jammed inside the drum, but these were not confirmed.
- What fixed it
- No confirmed repair was completed. The accepted advice was to determine whether the seizure was in the motor or drum by removing the belt, and to inspect for bearing failure or an obstruction. Once the machine was stripped, forum advice was that the visible corrosion meant repair would likely be too expensive, and parts availability for this model was said to be poor. Replacement or breaking for spares was therefore the practical recommendation.
- Checks to try
- Suggested checking whether the drum had come loose or the bearings had collapsed
- Suggested disconnecting the belt to see whether the motor or drum was seized
- Owner moved the drum slightly by tapping it with a rubber mallet
- Machine was stripped down
- Owner reported the bearings seemed fine
- Photos reportedly showed very bad corrosion around the drum shaft seal/related parts
- Parts or tools mentioned
- drive belt
- bearings
- drum shaft seal
- rubber mallet
Safety: Further diagnosis should be carried out by a suitably qualified appliance engineer.
12 Answers
Hello there. It depends on exactly what is causing the fault. Has the drum come loose or the bearings collapsed?
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Is this repairable?. Or only good for spares for someone else?
Also have you disconnected the belt to make sure whether it's the motor or the drum has seized up as either would cause you to be unable to turn the drum.
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Thanks for your reply. I am a absolute novice. Wife not happy at all. I will look at your suggestions tomorrow. Many thanks
Cheers. It's can be, the motor seized up (very rare), or the drum bearings collapsed, or something wrong with the drum. Another possibility is something stuck inside that's jammed the drum. Unfortunately the parts for Miele washing machines are horrendously expensive.
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Hi Andy. I have another question for you. Hope that you will be so kind to answer. Are there any other drums that would be compatible with this machine ?
As I am now located in Bulgaria & cannot find any parts for Miele here.
Regards
Mark
Definitely not. Have you found out where the problem is?
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Not yet, as I have been taking my time removing things and taking photos, so that hopefully I will be able to put it back together lol. But I hit the honeycombe drum with a rubber mallet in a few different places. And the drum did move a little. So I think that your advice as to it being a bearings problem is correct. I will keep trying little by little to remove things to be able to get to the part wgere I can remove the drum etc & look at the bearings. However I think maybe it will have caused damage to the spindle?. I cannot find anywhere that sells the complete drum set. But again many thanks Andy for you prompt reply. I will keep you in the loop as to how things go.
A drum jammed by some item of clothing that somehow got inside may allow you to move the drum slightly and it feels like whatever blocking it has some "give". It is very rare for drum bearings to seize up totally, and it's also very rare for any problem with the drum bearings to have not been proceeded by weeks of very noisy spins. It's even possible for a drive belt come off and get tangled up in the drum pulley at the back.
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Hi. Andy.
We have stripped the machine down today. The bearings seem fine. But I am including some pictures of the problems. I think that item 1. Is called the drum shaft seal. But cannot read the part number. And also same problem on item 2. Any help you are able to provide, will be extremely helpful.
T.I.A. Mark
Hi. Numbers on parts are useless in all cases I'm aware of. They are usually manufacturer numbers from China or wherever they are made. The part number required to order a replacement are always totally different. The only exception I'm aware of is numbers on bearings which include information that a third party bearing manufacturer can use to supply an equivalent.
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That looks like it's extremely badly corroded. I think I can say with reasonable confidence that it will be way too expensive to repair. But a bigger problem than that is that as far as I'm aware, Miele no longer supply any parts for that model.
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