Drum feels loose

[Beamsley]

If I place a finger on the drum, I can move it back and forth very easily. When the machine is on a spin, it makes a loud knocking noise.

I have checked the weight is tightly attached, the springs are ok and attached as are the shock absorbers underneath.

Can anyone point me in the direction of the potential issue and solution? It's a Hotpoint washing machine.

Thanks.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Beamsley
Make of machine

[Whitegoodshelp]

Hi. When you say back and forth, the drum is suspended centrally inside the casing on springs and suspension so it should move backwards if you push it, and then back to resting position. Bearing or drum failure is associated with up and down movement. The drum shaft is held tightly inside the drum bearings and normally there would only be about a millimetre of up and down play when you lift the drum at the door opening. If the drum spider is broken or the drum bearings are collapsing this play can be several millimetres. 

[Beamsley]

3 minutes ago, Whitegoodshelp (Andy) said:

Hi. When you say back and forth, the drum is suspended centrally inside the casing on springs and suspension so it should move backwards if you push it, and then back to resting position. Bearing or drum failure is associated with up and down movement. The drum shaft is held tightly inside the drum bearings and normally there would only be about a millimetre of up and down play when you lift the drum at the door opening. If the drum spider is broken or the drum bearings are collapsing this play can be several millimetres. 

Thank you for this. 

I'd never noticed it moving towards the door and to the back so easily - but that's not something I've paid too much attention to.

There is minimal up/down movement so I'm hoping it isn't the drum spider.

[Whitegoodshelp]

Take off the lid to make sure one of the outer drum springs hasn't broken. The drum should be held centrally. Check this article for help on causes of knocking noise on washing machine

[Beamsley]

15 minutes ago, Whitegoodshelp (Andy) said:

Take off the lid to make sure one of the outer drum springs hasn't broken. The drum should be held centrally. Check this article for help on causes of knocking noise on washing machine

The springs seem fine, no breaks and tightly in place.

I had a look at the article and checked everything which is why I'm at a loss. As it gets to the final spin, there's quite a bit of banging. I'm running a 30 minute wash now to see what happens and exactly when.

Edited March 6, 2020 by Beamsley

[Whitegoodshelp]

A knocking noise is usually something loose somewhere. Did you try the vigorous manual shaking and bouncing of the drum to see if you can hear anything? Also check the drum for upwards play at each point of the drum paddles. The drum spider at the back has 3 alloy arms and one can break or crack. Open the door and bring a drum paddle to the bottom (6 O'clock position) and lift the drum at that point. Then rotate drum round to next paddle and repeat. Has one of the 3 drum paddles got play in it?

Also check the drum pulley as described here Rattling tapping and grinding noise on spin

[Beamsley]

2 hours ago, Whitegoodshelp (Andy) said:

A knocking noise is usually something loose somewhere. Did you try the vigorous manual shaking and bouncing of the drum to see if you can hear anything? Also check the drum for upwards play at each point of the drum paddles. The drum spider at the back has 3 alloy arms and one can break or crack. Open the door and bring a drum paddle to the bottom (6 O'clock position) and lift the drum at that point. Then rotate drum round to next paddle and repeat. Has one of the 3 drum paddles got play in it?

Also check the drum pulley as described here Rattling tapping and grinding noise on spin

I moved the drum so each paddle was in the 6 o'clock position and there's no movement.

When I used the quick 30 minute wash, everything was normal until the spin with 10 minutes to go. As the spin was going, there was a slight grinding sound. As it was slowing down, with 8 minutes to go, the knocking sound appeared.

The clock weirdly increased to 13 minutes when the spin ended. It did a slow rinse and, after 4 minutes, the clock dropped from showing 9 minutes to displaying 5 minutes.

It drained, ran the final spin with the grinding and knocking sounds and then finished.

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Beamsley

[Beamsley]

Is there any way to find out how to access the outside of the drum to see if anything has managed to get through there?

Edited March 9, 2020 by Beamsley

[Whitegoodshelp]

Do you mean the inside of the outer drum? No they are nearly all sealed. If you think something is stuck in-between the outer and inner drum because you can hear it sliding about there's an article to give general advice how to remove something stuck inside drum 

[Beamsley]

14 minutes ago, Whitegoodshelp (Andy) said:

Do you mean the inside of the outer drum? No they are nearly all sealed. If you think something is stuck in-between the outer and inner drum because you can hear it sliding about there's an article to give general advice how to remove something stuck inside drum 

Thanks, Andy.

I'm at a loss at to what the cause might be of the grinding sound so I thought I could look to see if anything might have got through and wrapped itself around the drum. I can't hear anything sliding around, however.

I seem to have checked everything suggested so far and run out of ideas. As a stay at home parent, paying for an engineer to recheck everything I've already checked is a cost I'd like to avoid if possible.

[Whitegoodshelp]

Unless you are sure the noise is coming from the drum don't focus on the drum. I know you originally felt that the drum was loose but it appears that is not actually the case so maybe the noise is coming from somewhere else? A grinding noise, especially intermittent can be caused by a bit of plastic or some other obstruction that keeps getting sucked into the water pump. Noises can be difficult to troubleshoot. The only thing I can suggest is to also read part one of the article I linked to if you haven't already Causes of washing machine noise because that article and the second part lists every conceivable because of the noise from the washing machine that I can think of so there's an overwhelming probability that the noise is covered in these articles.

However, you can't afford to just skim through them. I know they are long but you have to take each section at a time and eliminate it through logic and testing. Repairing something is all about eliminating everything until you are left with the cause.

[Beamsley]

18 minutes ago, Whitegoodshelp (Andy) said:

Unless you are sure the noise is coming from the drum don't focus on the drum. I know you originally felt that the drum was loose but it appears that is not actually the case so maybe the noise is coming from somewhere else? A grinding noise, especially intermittent can be caused by a bit of plastic or some other obstruction that keeps getting sucked into the water pump. Noises can be difficult to troubleshoot. The only thing I can suggest is to also read part one of the article I linked to if you haven't already Causes of washing machine noise because that article and the second part lists every conceivable because of the noise from the washing machine that I can think of so there's an overwhelming probability that the noise is covered in these articles.

However, you can't afford to just skim through them. I know they are long but you have to take each section at a time and eliminate it through logic and testing. Repairing something is all about eliminating everything until you are left with the cause.

I will have a good read of it and follow through with all the ideas. Thank you for taking the time to help me. Much appreciated!!