WASCO Gen4 Inlet Valve

[buddy]

Has anyone opened and cleaned Inlet Valves on W74?. I have couple machines where water is trickling in during the fill. I changed the hose screen and even entire inlet hose but it had little effect.

My next step is to open up inlet valves and may be clean it?

I assume you would have shutoff the inlet water line before you open up one of these valves. Any tips/precautions would be greatly appreciated before I venture this.


Thanks.

[Anonymous]

This is childs play maintenance 101. Don't be worried, its really easy. As you say the first thing is to kill the water, and you might even want to kill the power to be extra safe. There is a little white tool that should be strapped to the hose inside the machine that you need to open the valve. It will fit inside a large socket and you use your ratchet driver to open the valve. The tool fits in the serated are under the electric coils. The coils pull straight up - just put the tip of a screw driver under it and turn and pull. It maybe a little hard if it had never been removed but it will pull off.

Once you use the tool to loosen the top of the valve be careful because there is a stainless rod with a spring that will want to jump out. Pay attention to how it goes in so you get it back in correctly. Once apart remove the blue tip diaphragm. You should probably just replace it with a new one. If you want to try cleaning it take it out and flush it under fresh water. Then hold it up to the light and you should see three pin holes at about 12, 4 and 8 O'clock. Use a straight pin to push out any bits of tiny sand that might be in it. Flush out the valve body too, then put everything together.

You will be very suprised when you do this that you actually get full water flow through these tiny holes.

Let me know if you have any problems.

[buddy]

Thanks Kirby. I know the white tool you're talking about I have few of those. I just wanted know what to expect because I did not want water squirting out all over the electrical components.

Thanks again !

[Howard]

A single grain of sand can knock out a water valve. Watch for it.

[JeffLange]

If it is a gen 4 you might as well just put a new one in they are very cheap for a complete valve. Check laundryparts.com they are $19.00 for a 2-way valve.