So sorry for your loss! Maybe it won’t be a loss. Maybe you can save the old girl.

I'm sorry to hear this. Maybe it's an easy fix and you can get your machine back to work without having to buy a new one. Keeping a good thought...

Have the same machine in white but live in Sweden.

They are good but take so long. Here they only hook uo to cold water do a sanatize wash is 5 hours and I can after that se more lint in the dryer. I wish mine would die soon as it is alomost 10 years.

But as you like it I do hope it can be fixed, but I do worry about spare parts....

That's a double loss in one day. Not good!

Thanks for the concern guys, I did pick up another Washer "just in case" the Bosch restore proves futile. I will post about that in another thread.

With a lovely Nor' Easter storm passing through Massachusetts today there was no better time than to break down the Bosch than tonight in front of the Pellet stove.

Here is how I started-

In about an hour it was down to this-

Jeff

It actually came apart rather easy as there were only a couple things that took a bit of figuring out. All those years of being an Auto Mechanic certainly paid off.

I was a bit worried when it came to separating the tub as I have seen Horror Tales of build up gunk and Spider assemblies that had corroded beyond recognition.

Fingers crossed...

Those years of good laundry habits paid off. Everything was pretty much spotless.

For the most part, what detergent have you mostly used in it since it was new? And was it powder or liquid? I know you are into Sears powder now.

Hope it all goes well and your weather improves soon.

Jeffrey Caban ... these are excellent pics to support to the frontloader naysayers that proper usage habits are the key to preventing mold and smutz accumulation.

Very nice! I hope you are able to fix it....I find posts like this so fascinating and love to see pictures in the process

sparky,

For the first 6 or so years of it's life we used Liquid detergent, Tide, Gain, Clorox, with All Free and Clear as probably the most used with my middle Son's skin allergy.

For the last 3 years we have used nothing but Powders such as Gain,Bubble Bandit, Ecover, Cheer, and of course, Sears Ultra Detergent being the #1 choice.

I have cleaned the Washer Pump clean-out only twice over the last 9 years, the first time around the 6 year mark and it was pretty disgusting. There was a "fatty" build up that I removed in chucks.

After reading up on Powder Detergent I made the switch and after checking the drain-out again last year it was spotlessly clean. It was then that I decided to stick with Powder Detergent only.

Jeff

Thanks for posting the photos of the innards of your sparkling Bosch. It's helpful to see things like this. Good on you having such a clean machine! I'm still sorry your beloved Bosch had a terminal issue though. I too use mostly powder detergent with our current washer as it works better for us removing stains and odors, but also to hopefully keep the 'crud' away at the innards level of our washing machine. It's such a battle here having our odd water here with it's softness as rinsing anything is such a challenge. It has it's pros and cons.

I'm curious. Where do you obtain powder Ecover laundry detergent? As best I can tell, it's only for sale with the European market presently. One can obtain it through Amazon (again, as best I can tell), but with significant price mark ups if I can find it offered. This leaves me using my usual powders instead. I'm liking Ecover Zero liquid, but I restrict it's use mostly to the cat's blankets due to fragrance-free and lack of OBs. I use it once in a great while on my own laundry and I'm pleased with it's performance, but it's still a liquid and the fear of liquid build up has been known to keep my mind occupied more than something should due to the build up my non-heating element previous front loaders suffered from. I don't have an internal heater on my current machine so, yea, those thoughts of liquid build up do preoccupy my mind space even with frequent hot washes. I take the recommended precautions with cleaning cycles, but still...That didn't help my former front loaders. Thanks in advance.

Hope you are able to fix this. My Bosch will be 12 in July & going strong since we cleaned out at the access panel in November. I do hear a clanking noise form time to time when doing a heavy load. I'd like to keep mine forever! Have used only Tide, Persil & Cheer powder since I got it.

dadoes,

Thanks for the compliment. I have learned a lot from the people here, yourself included. Figured I'd give some others here some valuable info back.

MiMi,

I love me a good resto post as well!

SEA SEA,

I bought a bunch of the Powder Ecover Detergent when Walgreens still had it on their site years ago. I am down to my last box now. It is/was good stuff.

Cadyren,

Another Bosch Nexxt fan :) They are great machines. 12 years and going strong proves that fact.

linus2003,

Mine does a normal load in 60 minutes. If I choose the Kids Care cycle which does a Profile Wash starting off cold and then gradually reaching 150 degrees the time goes to 120 minutes plus.

Jeff

Pulled the bearings and seal (Bosch calls it a Circular Clip) out of the tub to verify the part numbers.

Also did a little cleaning of the plastic outside drum. A quick wipe down with some Simple Green and it was good-to-go.

For those Bosch Nexxt owners out there the Bearing part #s are

6208Z for the larger inner bearing & 6206Z for the smaller outer bearing. The bearings are made by NSK and are readily available from several manufacturers. I ordered some preminum Nachi bearings as I want to make sure they last.

The bearing seal # is Bosch# 00613084

The large tub seal on the outside of the picture is Bosch #00494722

You can see by this pic that water was just starting to get past the seal and rust the larger inner tub bearing.

You can almost eat off of the outer tub ;)

This is the heating element. Most of these you see are covered in scale/lime.This one looks brand new.

A quick clean-up of the Drum Spider with some Automotive Eagle A-Z wheel cleaner.

Jeff

The Bearings and Seal showed up today and with yet another Nor' Easter rolling in with a possible 20" of Snow coming this way (!) to the greater New England area I spent the day off indoors.

This is the bearings with my homemade installation press tool. It is a 1/2" threaded rod with several washers and a couple nuts. The two largest washers are just a hair smaller than the outside diameter of the bearings.

I used to do the same thing back in the day as a teenager to press headset bearings in my bikes. It worked like a charm to press the bearings into the Washer as well.

This picture gives you an idea of how tightening the nuts will seat the bearings in the races.

Had to mark the tub with a reminder for if/when future repair work is done.

Jeff

Amazing! Hope you get many more years of service now that that's done!

I'll probably move the Bosch back into the Laundry room tonight as with the 3rd Nor'easter in 12 days here in Massachusetts and again up to 20" of snow coming I don't wanna be outside.

It is almost Spring right!?

Jeff

I want to be your wife. How old is your son? Smiley face.

maggie,

My Wife would probably be happy to give me away after having the Washer in our Family living room this past three weeks ;)

Jeff

Jeff, that was an amazing write-up !

I have 2008 Bosch Nexxt 500 W/D that was bought used (8.5-9 years old for $200) and is almost 10 years old now.

I hope I won't have issues but it's probably inevitable as I don't know the usage habits of the previous owner, nor how clean the inner mechanicals are.

First thing I did was to clean the detergent/FS/bleach compartment in LCB to remove all mold, and then ran it through XXtraSanitary with 1 cup LCB. SOOO much black gunk came out the drain hose, that I ran it for 2nd time to make sure the 1st run wouldn't just dislodge loose bits and clog it up !

laundry:

I use 1-2 TBSP/load, occasionally use 1/2 cup vinegar as FS.

I only do 1-2 loads/week, with 1 load being profile (heavy duty) temp boost or XXtraSanitary for towels or bed sheets. Fingers crossed that'll help prolong their life.

Clothes are cleaner, towels/bed sheets are whiter & softer than my old TL.

1 'hack' that I do for the towels/bed sheets is to start it as "delicate" so the tub fills with more water and let it run for minute or so; press 'pause'; turn 'off' the washer for another minute; the re-start on heavy duty temp boost or XXtraSanitary.

maintenance:

Every 3 months, I run empty XXtraSanitary cycle with either 1 cup baking soda OR 1 cup vinegar (with no detergent) but not both as basic high school Science 101 says baking soda + vinegar will neutralize each other, form bubbles and water.

What's the benefit of starting a load on one cycle than stopping after a minute or so and restarting in a different cycle?

Imo it would be more beneficial doing a clean machine in citric acid or bleach.

mamapinky0, i do it just to get the extra water fills of the 'delicate' cycle vs 'PP' or 'cotton' as I found when I did load of bed sheets [2 sets of queen flat, fitted & pillow cases, and mattress protector] directly on 'heavy duty' 'cotton temp boost' or 'XXtraSanitary', there didn't seem to be enough water to saturate them.

It could just be the mattress protector was absorbing more water.

I think it's an additional 1 gallon.

The water stays in the drum, and by restarting on 'heavy duty' 'cotton temp boost' or 'XXtraSanitary', I can run a full profile wash on 'temp boost' or 'XXtraSanitary' and get the benefits of boil wash to clean towels/bed sheets.

Depends on the individual machine's programming ... some may run a drain at the start of a cycle ... some don't do that if the water level sensor already registers a normal fill level.

Came Home from a Vermont weekend get-a-way with the Wife to find out my Daughter, who is Home from College, decided to do her Laundry. No problem right? Well she was used to her College Washing Machines which hold a boatload of Laundry, not the 3.8-4.0 capacity of a Bosch Nexxt.

Well, the large Bearing got water in it and the Washing Machine was sounding like a Freight Train...not good, Luckily I still had the Speed Queen Front Loader in storage and moved that into the Laundry Room for the week so I could replace the new Bearings & Seals.

Upon tearing it down I was greeted with this-

This was much worse than the last time I replaced the bearings so I would have to say the seal had failed and was letting water in.

I ordered Nachi Bearings once again but this time I ordered the Bearings with the removal seal so I could repack the Bearings with some premium grease.

The Bearings I ordered were: Nachi 6208-2NSE9C3 for the larger inner bearing and 6206-2NSE9 for the smaller outer bearing.

As you can see, Nachi was rather "frugal" in their use of grease:

I cleaned out the factory Grease and repacked the bearings with some premium Lucas Red N' Tacky #2 grease. This time with more than enough grease.

Relabeled the tub for the bearing repacement:

I just put it back together tonight and did two loads of Laundry and it was sounding like new again, quiet as can be.

Now I just gotta keep the Daughter far from the Laundry Room ;)

This came across my phone memories while I had the washing machine apart...

4 years to the date I did it last time!

Jeff

We need an "Oh no!" button here. I didn't want to press 'like' on your post. That seems wrong. But thank goodness you are as handy as you are! I'm glad you are back in business again, but gosh, that's really too bad the Bosch blew out it's innards in what seems like a short time.

Sea Sea,

I'm sure the Washer would have been fine if it weren't for the ungodly amount of laundry my Daughter stuffed in it causing water to bypass the seal.

But yes, four years is way too soon to be doing this again. Here is hoping that with the newly repacked bearings it will be the last time I am tearing it down.

"I'm sure the Washer would have been fine if it weren't for the ungodly amount of laundry my Daughter stuffed in it causing water to bypass the seal."

Interesting. I'm not following how a super-large load would have that effect. You're referring to the bearing seal in pic 3? How much time passed between the mega-load event and the bearing noise evidencing and then your disassembly/repair to find the rusted bearing? The bearing rusted only during that timeframe?

I got Home and the Laundry was still in the tub and when I say packed I mean packed in the machine. The clothes were still wet and not even wrung dry. I emptied the clothes and gave the Drum a quick spin and it was grinding already.

I ran the Washer for exactly one week while the parts were on order so another 12-16 loads and it was getting louder each time I used it.

Like I said I was surprised just how much rust was on the Bearing and well as the insides of the hub area.

Perhaps the seal had already been leaking and the stress of the overload tipped the bearing over to failure.

Could be. Still blaming my Daughter though.

:)

dadoes - Never underestimate the amount of laundry teenagers and kids home from college will try to pack into a washing machine. Don't ask how I know that. :-p

I am just curious what made up the load you found in the tub..was it primarily clothing or were there a lot of towels along with it? My experience with my LG FL was that for the final spin if it felt the load was not going to be properly distributed, it would not spin. A routine load of towels was about 9 or so bath towels and assorted wash cloths, kitchen linens and a face towel or two. It increasingly would not do a final spin with a load of towels, which irritated me to no end. My previous FL, a Kenmore, seldom had that problem. I'm just wondering if that was why the load was wet that you found-the machine decided not to go into spin.

armjim,

The Laundry was comprised of a little bit of everything, mostly cottons, some towels, and polyester Hockey clothing. It was the sheer amount that was my concern as there definitely was no "dropping" of clothes from top to bottom as the tub was packed full.

Jeff