Newsflash: Don't believe everything you read on the internet

On my third (and most important) load of laundry yesterday, I noticed that the washer tub wasn't spinning, as evidenced by the soaking wet pile of Mabes' and Annabelle's clothes. So after some googling, I determined that the problem was a broken motor coupler. The solution was either pay a repairman $120-$200 to fix the problem, or buy the $20 part and easily fix it yourself. Our washing machine is old. It was given to us by some good friends and we're very grateful for it, and when we got it, we had the attitude of "It could die any day, but hey! Free washer!" But I needed to finish my laundry and I didn't want to buy a new washing machine, so I figured I'd channel my inner Wanda* and fix it myself.

As I raced off to Sears to buy new coupler, I was thinking "This will be fun! I'm handy. And since the internet says it should only take 20 minutes, I can fix it after the girls go to bed, finish before Dave gets home, and then watch So You Think You Can Dance with a celebratory bowl of ice cream." Fool.

I rewatched the YouTube video a few times, and realized that the handyman didn't say how he got to the motor. More googling, and, crap. I have to take apart the whole thing? Fine. Unscrewed and pried everything apart, and get to the motor and transmission below the basket. Mine looks a little different than the video, but oh well. "Remove the clamps to release the transmission, then pull the broken coupler off..."

Seriously? First, it took me a good half hour to pry the clamps off. I'm not sure how the handyman did it so easily without the jaws of life. Then I had to get the coupler off. Who knows how long that took. Then I had to get the new one on--"a few gentle taps" my foot, handyman! But the part was replaced and all I had to do was put everything back together. And it was time to put the transmission back on. For as long as it took me to get it off, I knew it would take longer to get it back on. Fortunately, Dave was home at this point and after a lot of struggling we finally got it back on. More or less. Closed up the washer, did a test run, and for the love of Junior Mints, the drain hose fell off and there was water everywhere. But the tub in the washer was spinning, so I did something right. By that point, it was almost midnight and I was exhausted, so I decided we'd fix the the hose in the morning. I had a consolation bowl of ice cream before heading to bed, where I dreamed of broken washing machines and flooded laundry rooms all night.

It took a surprising amount of effort, but I finally got the hose back on this morning, and only had to clean up a small flood in the process. And most importantly, the washer is working. For now. I finished all my laundry and I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring out this repair. But I'm also a little nervous that the whole thing is going to fall apart on the next spin cycle.



*I don't mean to slight my dad. He has certainly made his share of repairs. But my mom does a lot of home improvement and repair. I mean, she bought us a drill bit set when she was here in January. And I was reminded of my dad's repair style around 10:30 last night as I was lamenting not becoming a lawyer: At some point, my dad calculates how long it would take to bill a client enough to cover someone else doing the repair/buying something new and figures it's not worth his time. And it's off to Best Buy.

I couldn't do that, though, so I figured out how much it would cost to repair or buy a new washer in terms of Junior Mints, ice cream, and Diet Coke, and resolved to repair it myself. And buy a box of Junior Mints.