Washing machine repair

esuhl

My AEG Lavamat 50700 washing machine has been working fine... but has suddenly started banging like a pneumatic drill on the spin cycle.

If I open the door and try to wiggle the drum, it moves quite a bit in all directions except on the right-hand side.

I've removed the rear and top panels, and there's not much I can see that would relate to the banging... But the water outlet that drains the detergent tray and connects to the drum isn't sealed. Water has run down the outside of the drum causing fairly significant rusting.

There appear to be two pneumatic/oil "shock absorbers". On one side, the nut and the eye-hole that's welded to the chassis is so rusted that it doesn't look like it would be possible to replace without welding a new attachment to the rusty chassis...

However, that part seems to be holding, so I think the rattling is due to something else.

I've tried to take photos of the leaking detergent tray and the rust around the shock absorber:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ol3m9mqm3bqmqcm/leaky%20tray.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bsmbs50d4dhb13p/rusty%20shock.jpg?dl=0

What I'm really wondering is whether it's worth fixing the rattle and leak, and hoping that it'll last for a few more years. Or getting someone in to repair it for me. Or just buying a new washing machine.

Any washing machine experts out there?

EssexExile

The trouble is you really need to know how much it moved about before to know if it's different now! It looks like it's been leaking for years so that may be a red herring. Does it have any heavy metal or concrete weights? If so have they come loose? Make sure the power's off when you're playing around in there.
There are so many possible reasons for banging while spinning that we'd only be guessing, unless anyone knows the usual faults for that model.

[Deleted User]

My money would be on knackered dampers. They went on my old Hotpoint, but as they were obsolete anyway I ran it until the vibration broke the spider and then scrapped it.