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i have a hotpoint aquarius in which the drum has seized completely. It had been making slightly more noise than usual but was working fine until the wekend. then the belt came off and now the drum cannot be rotated at all. can it be seized bearings or is something stuck? the plastic brackets securing the drum at the base of the machine are also reluctant to come out - does anyone have any tips on how to remove them.

Thnaks in advance :?

Hi its almost definately the bearings what happens is the bearing seal goes and water gets into the inner bearings and they rust this is a fidley job with alot of stripping down of the machine, the spider on the back of the machine which houses the bearings has to come off you dont need to remove the struts but the back cover of the machine has to come off so you can get at the spider once the spider is undone you should be able to pull it out of the drum with some persuasion then the old bearings have to be knocked out and the new ones should ideally be pressed in the bearings are quite cheap what I would do is once the bearings are out make a note of the numbers on the bearings and contact uk white goods online they will have the bearings and the bearing seal which will have to be replaced also

It's a fair old job to get the bearings out if they've totally collapsed... likely that water's got in and welded the inner (front) bearing to it's housing.

Taking the drum out to replace requires totally dismantling the machine... set aside a good whole day for this, and if you've got a digital camera, take lots of pictures of bits before dismantling... that way, you can see what goes where when re-assembling.

The plastic brackets are probably integral to something else... only by totally dismembering the drum will you get it out anyway.

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