World of Washers

I should have posted this a long time ago. A little over a year ago, a reader posted very detailed instructions on how to fix the F51 error code prevalent in the Oasis/Cabrio/Bravos machines. Thank you very much, Mr. Baxter, for doing the legwork on this one.

I am reposting this on the main page since many people may not dig deep enough into the blog to find this post in the comments section. You can read the original post and all comments here.

Remember, if you do not feel comfortable performing this operation, or are incapable of following the instructions to the letter, do not attempt this fix. There are enough posts confirming these instructions work, so I really do not want to receive any emails blaming me for any problems, damage or injuries that arise from following these instructions. I will assume no liability for any problems which arise.

For the detailed instructions, click "Read More" below.

Thank you for the excellent post. Between the Service Tech User Guide and the above post, I was able to quickly and easily diagnose the problem. The following is a long post (sorry!)

I'd like to offer a more detailed pieces of information to the above post that others may find helpful. Feel free to add your own comments as needed. The below is intended to be more step by step whereas the above is the concepts.

If you are comfortable with mechanical and electrical things, this is pretty simple to fix. If you are not, it best left to someone who is. Bear in mind that anything done could violate your warranty (though in my experience with Sears, it is pretty useless anyway!)

My procedure was similar to the above:

1. UNPLUG WASHER FROM WALL, AND THEN Tilt washer up so that back rests on the wall. You need enough clearance to get under it and for it not to fall back on you. (Can you say Squish??) YOU MUST UNPLUG WASHER TO AVOID ELECTROCUTION....

2. Using the proper size Allen wrench, slowly unscrew the screw which holds the plastic housing. It is surprisingly heavy because it contains larges permanent magnets. The housing is actually the armature of the motor. The Allen headed screw can not fall out of the armature. Keep unscrewing until it is clear that it is released. Once that is done, some small pressure back and forth on the white plastic part will help remove it from the spline shaft.

3. Get your self some paper towels as the next step may have some grease!

4. Remove the four bolts securing the coil windings (stator of the motor). There will be a top plate, Note its orientation. If you are unsure how it may go back in, use a pencil and mark it in one location on both the plastic and the steel.
In my case, after removing the four bolts, the stator was still held in place, despite its weight simply by the grease between the plates. A small amount of wiggling and the stator comes free. It has A LOT of copper wire and Iron in it, so be prepared for it weight. Do not let it hit the ground. Slowly help it come away. There is also a gray plastic protector on top of the stator, which will try to fall away on its own. Again, use a pencil to mark where it was located if you feel at all unsure about where it will go when you reassemble

5. There are a set of black plastic wire ties which press fit into the base of the basin. These easily come off by tugging gently on them and will allow you to set the Stator (the big coils) onto the ground safely.

6. At this point, you can now get to all Motor Position Sensor (MPS), which is the ultimate cause of the F51 error. Once here, you can do a few things: A. Replace it (likely not needed) B. Take it apart and clean the contacts C. Simply reseat the connector a bunch of times.

7. To remove the MPS for inspection, first remove the three wired connector with the non-brown colored wires. This just pulls away.

8. Removing the MPS requires a small amount of caution because you can damage the insulation on the stator windings if not careful. To remove the MPS, find the small plastic tabs which are on the outside of the stator and using your fingernail on each side, gently pry them away from the stator while gently lifting the MPS straight up away from the stator.

9. Once the MPS is removed from the stator, it is now possible to remove the MPS from the wire harness. You will find it pretty easy to remove the non brown colored wires from the MPS, and then you will be able to pull the all brown MPS wire harness off the MPS.

10. You can simply reseat the MPS harness a number of times. This will "clean" the surface of the contacts via mechanical abrasion. This MAY fix your problem.

If you are gifted with small things, and are not afraid of damaging a pretty delicate component, you can very easily "fix" the MPS from ever bothering you again... Or at least for a very long time. THE FOLLOWING SHOULD ONLY BE PREFORMED IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING... YOU CAN EASILY PERMANENTLY DAMAGE YOUR MPS WHERE IT HAS TO BE REPLACED... AND YOUR WIFE OR HUSBAND WILL LIKELY BE VERY PISSED OFF AT YOU since it seems to take 23 days to get a new part!

TO FIX THE MPS:
10A. VERY carefully remove the plastic connector guide by gently lifting its catch pins while also pulling up on it.

10B. If you have a small enough pencil eraser, you can try to get in with the eraser to run over the contacts on the printed circuit board (green thing with silver contacts) DO THIS UPSIDE DOWN SO THAT ERASE SHAVINGS DO NOT GO DOWN INTO THE PLASTIC SLOTS.

Alternatively, using the two holes in the printed circuit board (PCB), and two small jewelers screwdrivers, you can gently and evenly pry out the PCB. This *MUST* be done evenly or you will snap the thin PCB and then buy your self a night on the couch and a new Motor Position Sensor. Carefully remove the rest of the PCB, noting its direction inside the white plastic housing. THEN take a pencil eraser to the silver contacts. If you look, you will likely see that they have become slightly pitted. This is root cause of the MPS F51 error. It is a design defect by Whirlpool in the connector technology which is used. What you are seeing is mechanical abrasion caused by the motion of the connector against the wiring harness. (Gee, washing machines vibrate, what a concept. You'd think Whirlpool would know that by now. Guess not!) The pencil eraser helps to remove built up oxidization which can substantially increase the contact resistance and lead to an apparent failure.

10C. After cleaning the contacts, gently reinsert the PCB back into the plastic housing. Be sure not to damage the hall effect sensors when you are sliding the assembly back together. (These are the small black pieces at the end of each finger of the PCB). Handle the whole thing gently.... :) Be sure to press the PCB back into the housing firmly (GENTLY!) and be sure it is fully seated.

10D. Replace the plastic guide for the harness. It clicks into place and really only has one direction to go.

10E. ADDITIONAL USEFUL STEP... Using an X-acto knife (or other VERY thin object), I also very gently and carefully bent the pins on the wire harness with the brown wires inward toward the center of the harness. This will cause them to make a more permanent contact with the MPS once you reinstall it. It will also hold the connector more firmly against the contacts during vibration. (HOWEVER -- it may also lead to a faster rate of pitting on the MPS over time.)

11. Reverse steps 9 to 1 :)

When replacing the MPS on the stator, note that the stator has and arrow, which locates the MPS, and it also has a label for the colored wires in the correct order. Follow those to ensure you get the stator back together properly with the MPS.

You will find it a bit challenging to get the Stator assembly (metal coils) back into place while also holding the gray plastic "top" cover. I found it easiest to hold the gray cover mostly in place, then slowly lift the stator assembly back into place. Then holding it with one hand, place a bolt through one of the holes and start to tighten it down. Make sure ALL bolts are in before you tighten any of them down.

Getting the armature (circular white plastic housing with magnets) back on is also a bit challenging. Push it firmly on the spline shaft, then start turning the Allen wrench. You will find that once it engages, you can let go of the armature and let it "screw" back into place. Note that the Armature will get closer and closer to the gray plastic housing, and then suddenly the Allen screw will get "tight". Hold onto the plastic of the armature to resist the turning of the Allen screw, and tighten the Allen Screw a reasonable amount.

Put washer back as it was, and plug it in. You can use the Service Technicians guide linked above to run a set of diagnostics.

GOOD LUCK!

My Backgound:
I am an Electrical Engineer with a background in mechanical engineering and debugging complex problems as well as failure analysis. This problem is one which is cause by a design defect. The manufacture screwed up here, in my professional opinion.

This is a knowable issue if your a decent engineer: Things shake. WHen they shake, every place that interfaces needs to be carefully designed to address multimode vibration. In this case, Whirlpool designed a very thin soldermask over bare copper PCB interface. This is not so much a problem, but the connector they chose guarentees pitting on the PCB over time as high frequency harmonic vibrations occur. If you were to look at most other connectors, you'd find they were made using lug and spade style connections, which are known to be very reliable. For some (cheap) reason, Whirlpool chose not to do this. The F51 codes will happen to EVERY washer overtime. Some may be sooner than others due to manufacturing tolerances. One poor soul I read about had theirs for a few days before it started, whereas ours was about a year after we had it.

Another contributing factor: Make sure your unit is level! That may seem silly, but it will cause worse harmonics to occur and the damage to the PCB to be done sooner.

If you are curious to see the harmonics in action, choose the manual tests and then lock the lid, turn on the MPS test and then do the motor tests at 23 RPM, 500 RPM and 1000 RPM. AS the carriage spins up, you will be able to physically see the vibration in the unit. Note too that it smooths out once the motor reaches 500 RPMs or 1000 RPMs. That is because the mechanics are designed for those speeds. But as you are going in between those speeds, weird harmonics occur which cause physical shaking of internal elements (like the MPS for example)

Hopefully this will help others to understand what the root cause of this problem was, and how to fix it. Sorry for the long windedness but hopefully it was helpful.

All of my Best to you!