Kenmore he2 front load washer

Open the panel with 1/4 in socket. Turn white plastic cap filter counter clockwise. remove debris. replace. Run rinse and spin cycle. reopen cap and check for any new debris. replace filter cap and put cover back on. put $65 in bank. Send note to Eddie Lampert and tell him that Sears sucks and he'll never save it as long as they keep screwing their customers by not telling them about a simple fix like like this to an obviously common problem.

UNPLUG THE WASHER!!! Take off the front lower panel... three screws at the bottom. The drain plug is on the right/center. The pump motor and drain hose to the right of that. Unscrew the drain plug... counter clockwise... it is going to be a little tight, but go slow. Have a pail ready to collect the wash water still in the machine. The drain plug comes out with the trap. In it you will find items that are clogging the drain. Clean out the trap. You may also have to make sure the pump rotor is not jammed. Wiggle your finger to feel if the rotor spins and find if there is something there. If you need to clear the pump rotor... very common: The rotor and drain hose are to the right of the trap. To the left of the pump rotor is the pump motor. Twist off the pump motor by turning counter clockwise (toward the front). It will be tight but go slow and steady. The pump motor and rotor will clear the drain section allowing you to remove whatever has fouled the rotor. Replace the pump motor in the housing, taking care that all sections of the twist closer are tight. Replace the front panel. Plug in the washer and get to your chores!

GIRL TIPS!

Cleaning the filter of your Kenmore HE2t series washer - hard to get to.

Okay, I'm a girl, so I'm going to explain this in GIRL TERMS. :-)

1. Put the phone down and DO NOT call the repair people.
2. Get a bucket or batter bowl and a plastic measuring cup. The 1 cup size is best.
   
3. If the machine is not on a pedestal, get a big black plastic bag.
4. Get some plastic - a plastic grocery bag for example. This is for catching screws.
5. Get a cup or SOMETHING to put those screws in and place where you cannot possibly knock them over.
   
6. Borrow a 1/4" hex socket if you don't have a set.
   
7. Shut your cat up in the bedroom because he can't help with this, but he really wants to.
8. Wear latex/nitrile gloves.
9. UNPLUG washer.
10. If your washer is NOT on a pedestal, slide some plastic WAAAAY under it in case you drop one of those tiny hex screws. You can just pull it out, retrieve the screw, and put that plastic back under there!
11. The hex screws are on the far left, far right, and center at the bottom of the kick panel. You have to do this by feel if you don't have a pedestal - and you CAN do it.
12. Carefully place EACH hex screw in a cup as you retrieve them. Make sure that cup cannot be knocked over!
    
13. Once all three hex screws are out, push the panel down and pull out from the bottom. You'll see two plastic pegs on the top of it - they fit into holes.
    
14. You'll find an instruction booklet taped in a plastic bag in that panel. Put it in your file cabinet.
    

If u havent been check pockets before loading the machine there is a Great chance that the water pump is clogged. U need a torx 20 to take three torx screws off the toe panel under the door. hose clamp would be good to have if no a bucket will do.unplug the machine unscrew the other torx screw holding the pump in place. pull it forward undo the pump trap door and let everything fallinto the bucket and reverse the operation..

I had a similar problem, but actually had the pump completely fail. I had the same three machine screw front. Opened it up with the large trash bag (THANK YOU FOR THAT RECOMMENDATION!), there was ALOT of water coming out, would have been a real mess without that bag trick. I had tons of change and lint and debris clogging the filter trap, but unfortunately that didn't do it. As soon as the washer went to spin/drain cycle I could hear the pump try and then stop and the flashing lights began. So then as suggested above, you can twist the pump motor and pull it apart. A simple electrical plug comes out and you can see the impeller in the pump. My impeller would not spin smoothly and I could see where it has been wearing and spinning out of balance. Further inspection I pull the impeller and magnet assembly out of the pump and the magnet itself was broken. I since ordered the part direct from Sears. It took about 10 days to get here, $60 for the part and about $15 for shipping. The water pump with housing is Part # 8540024.

Replaced the pump and everything works great. It's much much quieter now too. I think if you hear a louder vibration type of noise, this could be the pump going out. Our pump was making this loud noise for several months before finally giving up.

Anyhow, mine wasn't a simple "Clean the filter", it was a "Replace the broken pump", but it's still very very easy to do, no reason to pay someone to do that.

We have the Kenmore HE2.

The problem and solution were the same for me, too. It's had problems off and on with the lights & display flickering, but recently it began stopping mid-cycle and not draining water.

Took the 3 screws off the bottom front plate and saw the big plastic hand-screw pump access thing ... had a bucket handy & unscrewed it slowly, allowing the trickle to drain into the bucket & tightening it each time the bucket was full to stop the flow. (it worked great until i got over zealous and opened it more, causing the water to pop the plug out & my bucket to overflow onto the floor).

as was the case with others, our problem was a sock and a lot of change. after cleaning those out, i rinsed the stopper for a long, long time ... getting rid of a lot of built up black grime.

ran a short load afterward & it worked great.

thank you all for sharing the solution!

The suggested repair totally worked for me - a first-time appliance repair person. The hardest part was finding the right torx 20 tool and taking off the screws. I fixed it in about 15 mins. thereafter and saved at least the $65 Sears service visit and got it done faster than the 2 weeks they said they could have someone here. It would have been a DISGUSTING mold problem by that time with the full load of clothes in the locked washer - ick! One suggestion - I used a large plastic bag to collect the water, etc., once I disconnected the drain pipe filter cover. Couldn't fit a bucket underneath and otherwise it would have been a floody mess. Thank you, thank you for this great solution!!

Ironrunner

You just saved me two weeks of plotting the destruction of Sears at the laundry mat! Thanks.... Next time I see the sears guy I will kick him in his **** for not just showing me this to begin with.

Thanks for the posts and the helpfull hint of using a garbage sack. I couldn't believe the amount of junk trapped, including one of my toddler's socks...good reminder to always use garment bags.

CORRECTION!!

I said for machines with locked doors:

- a) on the RIGHT side (the side of the door handle) reach UP inside the door - waaaay up until you're pretty sure you couldn't possibly reach any higher.

WRONG! Not inside the DOOR. DUH. Inside the front panel. My apologies.

I am a recently widowed mom of 3 who had this problem. I followed the steps above. Had some trouble getting cover off, propped washer back on a Tide bottle and made it easier. Wasn't prepared for the amount of water though. Had trouble getting white cover off due to amount of lint, sock and money. I am SOOOO happy. If I can do it anyone can!!!

Ironrunner & Olyjim...you guys ROCK!!! That was the easiest repair I've ever done. Now I'm gonna cancel the repair call and take my wife out to dinner with the $65 I just saved, plus $1.65 I found in the drain. She has finally calmed down about this whole ordeal. Imagine.....an entire day waiting for me to get home from work to fix the 2 year old washer. Her nerves are shot!! LOL Thanks again!

I had the same draining problem as the others. All the suggestions were helpful. I used a silicone loaf pan as a funnel into the bag it worked great! We found: $2.26 in change, the under wire from a bra and about 9" of pre-caulked bath tub sealer, go figure. Thank you all.

We have a HE2 model 110.464625 and it would not drain after washing a rug. I was dreading trying to fix it. However, from other posts here, I took off the front lower panel held in place with 3 small hex head screws............and found a screw-in clean out plug looking me in the face. Since we had the stacked units sitting on a 8" riser, I got a bucket under the cleanout, unscrewed the plug and cleaned out all the junk.....but be careful, if there is water still in the washer, it will surge out when the junk is cleaned from the end of the line! Easiest fix I've ever seen. Great design (but NO mention of it in operating manual for fixing clogged drains!).

We had the same problem; lights flashing, not draining, not continuing to finish the cycle. Ours had three 1/4" machine bolts holding the cover on. Once those were off I just unscrewed the cleanout plug and out poured some of the smelliest water and about $3 worth of nickles and pennies! It took about 15 minutes and now we can clean our clothes again! Thank you to everyone that contributed to this solution!!!!

THANK YOU!  I first got the Error Code F-21 and did the fix it in the manual with no luck.  Later, I tried a rinse-only cycle and got error code F-01 immediately.  After reading this discussion, i fixed it in only 10 mins!  THANK YOU.   It is only 3 screws under the door of the washer and unscrewing a big drain trap.  A LOT of water came out which I caught in a bucket (my washer is on top of the drawer).
Thanks for helping!
p.s. I yielded $0.25, a bobby pin, a crumpled piece of paper and lots of weird lint.

Suggestion 17 saved me. My washer wouldn't drain, or finish spinning. I know about the filter and cleaning it, but I failed to check up to the right- out the pump exit from the filter reservoir. Sure enough, a big wad of string was rendering the pump useless. The pump was very hot. I unplugged the electricity, then I dug the string out with hemostats, and now my washer is up and running again. Thank you soooo much.

I had the same draining problem as described by others, but the drain pump filter was not plugged. Instead, a large rubber band had somehow gone through the filter and was caught in the pump propellers. In my model (110.46472501), the pump can be turned and then pulled off of the filter apparatus by depressing a tab as the pump is turned (although I only learned this after taking out the pump and filter apparatus together), and the pump can then be cleaned. A perk in taking off the toe panel: attached to the inside of the panel was a trouble-shooting guide "for service technician only" which does include checking the drain pump filter for this problem.

Thank you so much, it worked. I just want to let others know it's not just lose change, I actually had a sock in the trap door of the pump.

This works!! they don't tell you anything about it in the maual of course....but it unclogged it beautifully. plastic bags work well to catch the water..ideally a two person job!

Sears has lost my business forever, and I have almost purchased my own Sears store piece by piece over the years (I'm 68!)
Their products don't last at all. From cordless drills to washing machines...they all break before they should and cost a fortune, at Sears Parts prices, to fix. They actually charge you $5 for a stinking screw!
After my old top loader Sears machine died after a fairly reasonable life, I thought I would upgrade to a front loader thinking it would agitate clothes better and save water. Well, you can't pre-soak your clothes and you can't just spin dry a load without also rinsing it. The cycle times are outrageously LOOOONG! if you choose anything but Express Wash at 28 minutes.
My washer stopped draining too, so I have to do a wash cycle, then pull the drain plug out to let the water out, then spin/rinse the load to get the remaining water out, then put the drain plug back in and spin/rinse again to get the clothes rinsed, then pull out the drain plug to get the water out with another spin/rinse.
I pulled out the entire drain and water pump assembly and their was nothing in it because I had been taking the drain plug out so frequently. The water pump seemed okay too.
I forced water through the drain tube to see if it was clear.
Found a new water pump on Amazon for $75 versus Sears price of $85 PLUS their outrageous shipping prices.
If I can't get the present pump to work, I'll have to buy an new one and you can't even be sure the replacement pump will last for very long.
I would rather buy a very old Maytag top loader from back when they made excellent machines and pay whatever it takes to rebuild it. It's either that, or I'm going to buy disposable clothes.
Stop buying from Sears! The new management has destroyed their quality of products, reputation and any trust I ever had in their service people which are now merely local repair crooks they recruit for service calls. They lie to you and rip you off more often than not.
Sears only offers you an expensive repair program when you are out of warranty and their machines are designed to fail right after their very short warranty periods.

Same problems as above .. But water seems to me pouring from the machine from many places.. What do I check next and how does that stuff get in the drain !??

Wow - Thanks for all the help.
The easiest fix in the world. Why isn't this in the manual they give with the washer!
A blonde super model could have achieved this simple task! What po's me is the fact that the really helpful info is taped to the inside of the panel you need to remove, left there for the $80/hr repairman to find! But thanks to you guys and my internet surfing wife, 5 mins. and no lost cash, my clothes are again clean!

The correct drain problem solution has already been posted above, so I will just add: we have a swimming pool so I used our pool pump stuff, Jack's rubber gasket lubricant, on the rubber gasket and it turned very smoothly when I reinstalled it. Also, we do not have a pedestal so I had to lift the washer and put 2 by 4 lumber chunks under the front two legs so I could get at the screws with a ratchet to get the front kickplate off. When I cleaned out the drain catch it was FULL including coins, a sewing needle, bandaids, a small eyeglass cleaning cloth, 5 lollipop sticks

How do I unclog drain of the Kenmore Front Load Washer, Model # 110.47512601.I fix my problem i removed the bottem font in u will see a big white clean out hose

We had a similar problem with water coming out of the soap dispenser when the washer was run. I assumed that it was a problem with the water draining as everyone else posted here. I took off the front panel, got rid of the junk and drained it. Although this was great, it did not solve the original problem. It turns out that there was a sock stuck in between where the water comes out of the soap dispenser and in to the main compartment. Pulled it out with a needle nose plier and good to go. Thanks to everyone for their input here.

Glad to find this resolution online, since the instruction manual had nothing about the issue. I removed the 3 screws from the bottom pannel (that was a bit of a challenge since one of them was pointed down and I couldn't unscrew it unless the washer was propped up) and drained all the water into a black plastic garbage bag, making several trips to dump the water. Found one small stick, a fun size Almond Joy wrapper, a Hershey Kiss wrapper and a pair of panties! Started the washer back up, works fine now :)

Machine not draining and leaking when in drain mode. HE2 machine. Removed front lower panel (2) 1/4 inch hex head screws. Access to filter is directly in front. About 3 inches in diameter with a hand hold. Be sure to put a plastic bag and towel below to catch all the debris and water. Turn counter clockwise and pull out. Be sure to check inside and try and spin impeller. Clean out debris. Lube the O-ring with liquid soap for easier instal. Run washer on rinse/drain cycle and again remove filter to check for debris. Clean again. Lube O-ring and instal filter. Replace lower panel. Preventive procedures: Check pockets, check for loose buttons etc. Place smaller items (baby socks are a real problem) in a laundry net type bag. Routinly check filter every 6 months or year. Very good design by Kenmore.

Wash cycle ends and spin cycle and drain to not initiate, timer continues and ends with wet laundry not drained, how an I check the pump for possible clog ?

This worked great. No service call saved $80. Found $13.54 in change among screws, pencils, pins and a bullet, gonna buy some well deserved Tim Hortons coffee with the cash!! Thanks for posting the solution.

I had the same problem and it was driving me nuts! My husband removed the front kick panel, and we opened the filter trap. We found THREE toddler socks, a bobby pin, two zipper pulls, a 3 inch long stick, a button, and $ .98. Bummer it wasn't more money and less socks. I will be purchasing a lingerie bag for the toddler socks tomorrow!!!!

THANK YOU So Much!!!! I Am Woman!!! Hear me ROAR Wait till I tell Mr. fix it who is out of town and I was desperate! A 1/4 nutdriver worked for me instead of the T-20 but at least I know what those are now... I got $2.27, 2 big screws, bobby pin, a clip and...a 2008 license plate sticker tag!

Thank very much everyone for this fix I have been on this 2 days and I cant beleive it was a simple clogged drain plug under the front lower panel. 3 screws open the drain cleaned the slot machine LOL

Yay! I love it when i am really busy trying to get things done and my washer stops working! But... the advice on this site was right on! My washer would not drain or spin. So... we took off the front cover and pumped out the water from the drum and the hose by squeezing the soft hose that attaches the drum to the pump.
Then we cleared out the hose, but didn't find a main culprit. The water that came out when we pumped it was murky, looked like lint.
I will say that I had just washed a very fuzzy sweater...whoopsies!


Thank you , thank you for the advice. Easiest fix ever!

My boyfriend and I just finished following the instructions online to correct this same problem, and it worked!!! We were trying to solve this problem from the back of washer and thank goodness we did not try unscrewing anything from the back of the machine. We finally went to the web and found your helpful solutions. The Sear instruction manual is terrible, it states it is a hose clogged problem, but does not tell you how to get to the drain. I think the lack of information is a plot by Sears!!! Call me paranoid!!! Anyway, thanks for the helpful solutions, we used a cake pan to drain the water in, because it was so low to the ground, My boyfriend is very proud that he fixed this without a repair person, he is struting around like a proud peacock! You guys!!!!

Thank you so much.  I have never even tried to fix an appliance before.  Sears was going to charge me 75 dollars just to have someone come take a look at it and it took me 15 minutes to fix myself.  

Same scenario as alot of the comments, my wife washed a rug and then it would not drain...kept getting SD and f01 codes which shut the machine off half way through cycle. I followed the instructions and the wahser is working great now................ BIG THANKS

Many thanks to the poster of Solution #5.

This did not solve our problem, but put us on the right track. Here's the story.

We were disappointed to find only one penny and some dirt. No slot machine in our house! We were about to ditch this solution, when we looked inside the white drainage tube, and up the black hose (which collects water from the bottom of the washing bin). Something metal caught my eye, and, after removing the black hose (metal clamp loosens by squeezing together) I found a full size open safety pin (2"). I didn't think much of it, until I reached up the hose further and found some kind of ping-pong ball. I'm guessing that the ping-pong ball blocks the black hose when the water has drained, and this somehow signals the drain pump to stop. Our open safety pin must have stopped the ping-pong ball from creating a seal, so the washer wouldn't spin because it though it was still draining. A very random problem, but an easy solution! The black hose was somewhat difficult to re-attach, so I recommend vice-grips to help you in the small space.

Thanks, again, for saving me from paying $200 to have the repair man tell me, "You need a new computer board."