I need advice on how to replace the drum bearings on an LG WM 1480FHD washing machine and what if any replacement seals will be needed. Information on where a service manual can be obtained would be extremely useful. My problem is also noise in spin mode - serious noise !! (Sounds like a 747 taking off !!) but relates to an LG WD-8013F - I've taken the back off and released the belt drive - I'm now looking at a large nut - which I assume secures the drum to the shaft ? - once I have that off am assuming I may need a specialised tool to remove the bearing & seal ? When I rotate the drum manually, the bearing noise is right at the back of the drum - so I am hoping I don't have to change the inner bearing - if indeed one exists ? Can anyone assist ?
LG Direct Drive bearing replacement
The following guide is written to help you assess if
replacing the bearings is a job you can undertake and complete. This is
not written to be specific to any particular direct drive model but it
will help in all cases.
Must do's
Before commencing work on an electrical appliance:
1) Unplug the appliance from the wall socket, ensure the appliance on/off switch is in the off position.
2) Turn off the inlet water at the isolation valves and disconnect the inlet hoses from the appliance.
3) Clear a space and plan where you are going to put items you remove from the appliance.
4) Have pen and paper handy for making notes, a digital
camera is ideal for taking a picture of wiring connections for future
reference (**PHOTO**)
Strip down
1) Remove the worktop by undoing 2 screws at the rear, slide backwards and lift off.
2) FROM THE BACK.....Remove the back panel (4 screws)
giving access to the rear of the tub unit. Disconnect the wiring to the
motor, thermostat and heater, disconnect earth wires, (**PHOTO**). The
drum pulley, which is the ROTOR of the direct drive system has a single
bolt to undo. Slacken this bolt a turn or two, DO not remove
completely. Gently tap the bolt with a soft faced hammer or drift, this
will assist in the removal of the Rotor. Remove the bolt and remove the
rotor, careful as it has a series of magnets around its inner
circumference. The stator of the direct drive system is now in front of
you, there are 6 bolts holding it in place. Remove these and very
carefully remove the stator without damaging it, its very expensive,
look after it. Depending on your model there could be a spacer between
the stator and the tub unit, if so remove this also.
3) FROM THE FRONT.....Open the filter door (left side
of kick plate) if there is a small drain hose, remove stopper and drain
off any water in there. There is 1 screw to remove which is at the side
of the filter, then slide the kick plate sideways should release the
plinth from the cabinet. Open the door, the seal clamp band that
secures the door gasket to the cabinet should be removed. If the door
seal has a further hose attached, remove it.
4) Read all of this paragraph, there are 2 versions.....Remove
3 screws holding the lower edge of the front panel to the cabinet.
Remove the soap drawer, remove 2 screws in the control panel that
secure the soap box, depending on model there could be a third in the
lower right hand corner, if there is, remove it. If there isn't read on
further.. Carefully slide the front panel downwards about 20mm and it
will disengage from the cabinet, carefully look behind it and
disconnect the door lock wiring to allow complete removal. If there was
not a third screw (lower right hand corner of the control panel) then
the control panel will have to be removed. From the top remove the clip
retaining the hose that goes into the top of the tub unit, remove the
clip holding the large hose on the left, slide the soap box backwards
slightly and hang over the back of the cabinet, all the hoses still
connected. To remove the control panel look under the top frame and
release the two lugs whilst easing the panel away from the cabinet.
disconnect the wiring and remove away completely.
5) From the bottom remove the sump hose from the tub,
the screw that secures the pressure bottle to the tub. Remove the
suspension pins from the top position of the legs and push the legs
clear of the tub unit. The tub unit will now be hanging from the top
springs. Using strong wire or rope, loop the hook of the spring, lift
clear of the cabinet and lower the tub unit to the floor. Repeat this
on the other spring which then allows the tub unit to be lifted through
the front of the cabinet.
6) Place the tub unit door seal up, remove the screws
that secure tub front 1/2 to the rear 1/2. This allows the inner drum
to be removed, if its tight use soft faced hammer, DO NOT damage the
drum shaft.
Inspect the drum shaft collar, the collar is located
at the base of the shaft and is the surface that the oil seal mates to.
Look for indents or circular ruts where the previous seal has worn the
collar away
if damaged you will need a new spider unit. Do not
clean up using abrasive cloth, try the green pan scrubber from the
kitchen instead. If damaged and you don't replace it the bearing
replacement will fail prematurely as the oil seal fails to keep the
wash water away.
There are several different kits, comprising of 2
bearings and 1 oil seal. To obtain the correct kit you will need the
model number of your appliance, eg WM1480FHD or WM1485FHD or WM16225FD
all use bearing kit 1 available here other kits are available for other models including belt drives and washer dryers
The bearings can now be removed, the seats cleaned and
made ready for the new bearings and water seal. A light cover of grease
can be smeared on the inner edge of the seal.
7) There is a tub seal which fits in the recess between
the front and rear 1/2's of the tub unit, it is adviseable to renew
that seal before rebuild is commenced.
8) Rebuild is a reversal of the above, at every step
double check electrical and hose connections and before you refit the
cabinet front.
Hope you find this guide useful, some paragraphs can be applied to the belt drives also.
Excellent instructions up unitl No6 where the inner drum and spider need to be seperated form the back section of the outer drum. Unless your bearing has completely disintegrated this appears to be impossible. Soft hammer, large hammer with wooden block to no avail. The example above must have been rattling around inside the machine before replacement!?
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The bearing and seal seal kit comes as one(two bearings) cost around 20-30 GBP. take top of machine and look to see if the plastic outer drum is joined in the middle with screws. If it is the whole machine has to be stripped. If not you can gain acces by removing the front panel of the machine. To have an engineer do this work it would cost between 100-130 GBP. Its quite a big Job.
For LG wm2432 (wd-12210bd)
bearings are 6305zz 1 unit, 6306zz 1 unit, seal number is tc12099, dimensions - 1.5" x 3.0" x .375", get quality japanese or german brands, the OE korean KBC ones are not the best. will cost half the price of OE from a general bearing supplier.cost me $35 the lot.
Solution 3 just helped enormously when replacing the bearings on my WM-1485FHD - cheers! I would say though that having a 10mm wall-drive socket & spanner is essential for getting the spider free from the drum. My inner bearing was seized solid on the shaft meaning I had no choice but to replace the spider aswell. The cause of my woe was the fact that the bolt that holds the drum assembly together had come loose, this allowed play in the shaft and lead to the water passing the seal. I now plan to check this semi-regularly as it saves a *lot* of hassle.
If you can kick the shaft to slide out of the bearings - use a piece of hard wood, aluminium etc to protect the thread on the shaft when you knock it w/ the hammer.
The low tech solution to pull out a bearing (that is worn anywyas) is to break its seal (if any) and then rip/drill apart the "cage" that holds the balls (or cilinders) in place.
Next, if you can wiggle the shaft, you can pull out the balls and thus leave only the outer and inner bearing rings; anyways, you can pull those rings out with a special tool available in auto stores/shops, at worst, cut them w/ a metal saw.
Problems removing seized bearings?
Clem Vogler
Dec 26, 2011 - see above) Clem Volger has described for fitting the bearing. It might cost you 10 euros to get someone to drill a steel sheet for you (or take 20 min of your time if you have a good metal work drill) , but it saved me hours of banging and shouting. I will attach a photo of the plate with 2 of the four bolts in . Happy sweat free bearing changing! JOHN
Make your own bearing extractor - very easy and cheap. You can adapt this to any drum case with drill holes in the back. It worked brilliantly for my LG direct drive.
I got a local machinist to drill a 140 x 200mm (approx) steel sheet 10mm thick with 4 x 10mm holes to correspond with the holes on the back of the drum case designed for securing the LG direct drive motor coils. This allows you to then thread 4 x 10mm headed bolts (8mm thread) through your plate onto the back of the drum case. You can then use a section of steel pipe (in my case a 40mm diameter x 100mm length I found lying around to press out the large internal bearing. You place the pipe length under the plate and gradually tighten to four nuts to drive the plat down and with it, the bearing gently extrudes. It can help to tap the plate with a hammer periodically to loosen the seized bearing as you go. Also soaking over the preceding night with WD 40 or some other freeing agent will help.
No fuss, no banging.
You can also use the same plate with a central hole and a bolt to draw out the smaller outer bearing - much as 
Some supplementary details to the helpful instructions above.
Removing the drum assembly from the case. The drum is heavy and the clearance in the case is limited. contrary to the advice above, the drum is removed from the top of the case. When removing, don't alter the orientation of the drum while in the case. The best way, both for removal and subsequent refitting, is to place straps or cords around the drum and raise and lower it with a chain hoist or block and tackle. If no hoist is available, you may prefer to remove the concrete damper weights from the front of the outer drum (10mm spanner, four bolts per weight). Clearance is improved by removing everything superfluous from the case, eg, input hoses and also the motor spindle central bolt.
When reassembling, lower the drum assembley with the hoist to the point at which the shock absorbers can be connected and the plastic retaining pins pushed home (for removal, these pins push or tap out, once you depress the fouling key on their side).
Once the shock absorbers are connected, you can attach the springs. With a flat bladed screwdriver, lever out the plastic spring retainers from the case sides, connect each spring to the drum and hang the upper end over the plastic retainer centre, then push the retainer covers back to secure.
When you have separated the plastic outer drum, you need to remove the inner drum together with its spider and drive shaft. Before tapping the shaft end with a hammer, run a nut onto the thread so the nut end is just proud of the shaft end. This protects the shaft end and spreads the hmmer blow over as much thread as possible.
carefully lever out the old rubber seal. Replace it. Don't scratch the seal seating as you remove it.
You remove the bearings by placing the end of a suitable drift on the bearing inner face and tapping with a hammer, moving the hammer round each blow so that the bearing remains "square" as it emerges. I found the tommy bar of a half inch socket drive made a suitable drift to remove the smaller bearing. Once that is out, the hole is large enough to insert a suitable large box spanner, or similar, to act as a drift to knock out the other bearing. Each bearing comes out the shorter way. Retain the old bearings to use as load spreaders when you insert the replacements.
You may be surprised at the amount of scale inside the drums. Some of it will pressure wash off, some will scrape off and some comes off with descaler acid. Do all this cleaning before inserting the replacement bearings. Also remove the immersion heater. This is easy, it pulls out once you release the single nut on the retaining shaft. When replacing, push fully home, then tighten the nut to s=compress the rubber seal to prevent water leaks.
When inserting replacement bearings, insert the larger one first. You can make an insertion tool out of a long bolt or a length of threaded rod and various washers, spacers, etc. With the rod / bolt inserted through bearing and drum, tightening the nut will draw the bearing into its seating. Use the old bearings to distribute the compression evenly over the perimeter of the replacement. Avoid hammering if possible, if not, use a flat piece of wood over the whole bearing face and only moderate blows. The tightened nut and bolt should do the job without hammering being needed, but go slowly, constantly checking that the inserted bearing sits square - best assured by keeping the axial bolt and washers central and the old bearing spreaders exactly over their replacements.
Once in, run a little cycle oil over the bearing and leave for an hour or two to soak in. Finally insert the black seal.
When rebuilding the rotor assembly, the final stage is to screw in the central bolt - which will draw the shaft through the bearings and seal. you may need to use a slightly longer bolt of the same thread initially, removing this and replacing it with the shorter original bolt when the shaft has almost pulled through. Don't forget to put thread sealant (paint will do) on the threads.
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Belt is loose and itscoming off often is this a problem of belr or bearing
Hi i was hoping for a list of all bearing and seal sizes and what applications they fit i am a new bearing supplier and can offer wm1 branded bearings as well as F.A.G. and S.K.F at very competetive prices if anyone can email with any info on what bearings and seals fit what applications i am sure the whole community will save time, money and effort please email me at
[email protected] with any enquires i will be happy to help
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i am at the same stage with the same model any help would be apreciated
Need to replace the bearing and seal on my Frigidaire front load washing machine. I have removed the drum drive pulley but not sure how I'm going to replace the bearing and seal. Does the repair manual show step by step instructions? Will I need special tools to remove the bad bearings and seal?
Solution 3 is excellent upto removing the inner drum! mine will not budge. maybe more force required? also it does not say if any special way of removing bearings?
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