Washing machine whirring after motor reassembly

Grenage

The washing machine was tripping the RCD, I disconnected the motor and it stopped tripping.  I removed and disassembled the motor and gave it a good going over with contact cleaner.

Putting it all back together the machine no longer trips and the drum turns; partial success!  There is a clicking noise when the motor/drum turns, which becomes a whirring when it picks up speed.  It doesn't occur if I turn the drum the other way.

The motor was a total pain to remove so sanity check please.  I noticed that the commutator was slightly grooved, so is it likely that I've simply angled the brushes in the wrong direction?

EssexExile

Sometimes when you put the brushes in instead of going straight down to the commutator they can go at an angle and sort of lay across it. Did you put new brushes in? New ones are often held captive in their holder and are released after fitting to stop this.

Grenage

Aye that's right, they were angled so that the surface area on the brushes were angled and there were mount holes to angle both ways.

I can't see that I would have put them in the wrong direction, but I suppose I must have done.

Jeepers_Creepers

That's the most likely explanation. 

Hopefully you can get to the brushes without having to remove the motor again? Might even be worth fitting a new set rather than rotate the existing. 

Or - if it works and it's a real pain to get to - just leave it! They will soon bed in the other way... 

poppellerant

I would just run it on some long cottons cycles with very small loads to gently bed the brushes back in.  Allow the machine a good hour to cool down between each cycle, or you risk damaging the motor and/or brushes.

Although too late now, I'd have not used contact cleaner to clean the entire motor.  A good cleaning out with compressed air should have sufficed, using very fine sandpaper to clean the commutator.

Jeepers_Creepers

Certainly avoid contact cleaner near the bearings as it can remove the lube. I cleaned some pots using Servisol 10, and the lovely smooth rotating silkiness disappeared :-(

Grenage

Thank you for your advice guys, good tip regarding the bearings and contract cleaner.

I managed to get the brushes out without removing the motor.  I somehow put one back in the wrong way a second time and had to do it all again, but it's now running perfectly.

That was an enjoyable learning experience, so thanks again!