No high spin or drain, low spin & drain work fine

by John
(Coon Rapids, MN USA)

I've got a Whirlpool Gold Ultimate Care II, Quiet Wash Plus. model number: GST9675JQ0.
When using the normal wash setting everything works fine until the High spin/rinse cycle. All it does is spray the water but will not spin or pump out the water. I've tried the other three settings (Casual, Extra Delicate, and Hand Washables) and they all work normal. The only difference between these settings appears to be that only the normal wash cycle uses high spin. Everything else uses low spin. I did just recently wash a comforter that was pushing the load capacity limits of the washer but even the drain pump won't work now on normal wash; high spin.?

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Answer

Hi John,

Replacement parts in WHIRLPOOL GST9675JQ0

There are a few things I could be. Motor, timer or selector switch.

Some of the test can be confusing so lets start with the motor. First off I will say if it will agitate on high then it is not the motor but looking at the timer chart I see that on normal it will agitate on med or part of the cycle then again on high so you might not have noticed if it is agitating on high or not.

Unplug the washer and assess the motor. Look at the motor and you should see a blue wire and a white wire. Unplug the wires and test for continuity across the terminals that those two wires were connected to. It should be roughly 2.3 ohms but if it is not exact don’t worry about it the motor is not bad.

If that isn’t the problem, post back and we will go from there.

If you have trouble accessing the motor check out this page Whirlpool Washer Disassembly

There are videos at the bottom if the text is confusing.

Thank you,
Shawn/administrator

Comments for No high spin or drain, low spin & drain work fine

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motor checks out
by: John

I checked continuity between the terminals for the white and blue wires at the motor and they seemed good, between 1.7 and 2.0 ohms. I will wait for the next step, thanks.

RE
by: Shawn

After reviewing the wiring diagram and reading your post several times I feel like it is going to be in the timer. I know I said something about the selector switch but yours doesn’t even have one (I missed that last night). If the motor is good then it should be the timer. Without testing voltage with the machine running it will be hard to confirm. I don’t think it will be a good idea for you to try and test voltage with the machine running but like I said I feel like this is going to be the timer.

voltage check
by: John

Since the timer is fairly expensive (about $140) and most likely not returnable because it's an electrical part, how difficult is it to test it to confirm the problem. I've got a good background in mechanics and comfortable working with electricity, AC and DC.
Also, does that mean the over sized comforter I washed probably had nothing to do with my problem.
Either way thank you for your time and I will wait to see if you're able to help with the voltage test.

RE
by: Shawn

I am assuming that the problem is electrical because if it were mechanical the washer wouldn?t work on any cycle so the heavy load most likely had nothing to do with your problem.

Lets try to test with an ohmmeter because I rather you use an ohms test. Unplug the washer, turn the timer to the cycle that doesn?t work (high spin) and pull the timer out just as you would if you were starting the cycle. Now unplug the lid switch and place the ohmmeter lead in the tan wire. Now find the blue wire that comes out of the timer and goes down to the motor. Tell me if you have continuity there. If you do have continuity, unplug the motor to see if you then get an open circuit at the same place.

This should be testing continuity across the #5 timer contact, which is the contact of high motor.

It is still unclear to me if the washer will agitate on high or just on medium and low.

I understand you not wanting to just buy the timer without confirming, I promise I will do the best I can but I can?t tell you for sure if I can definitively diagnose this from here. Also you will have to be bare with me because I typically get on there once or twice a day.

test results
by: John

I checked between tan lid switch wire and blue motor wire at timer. I have continuity with and without the motor plugged in.
Just to make clear, it's not an entire cycle that's inop e.g. "normal". It's only the high spin/rinse in the normal cycle. During the rinse/spin it will still spray water but will not spin or pump it out. I'm pretty sure you already understood what I was saying but figured it wouldn't hurt to verify.

RE
by: Shawn

Plug everything back in and start the washer at the point that it doesn’t work. Start the washer and test for voltage at the same wires as before. You shouldn’t have voltage across the wires but there should be voltage from each wire to ground. If you have voltage across the two wires then the contact is open if you don’t then it is closed like it should be.

I have looked at the wiring diagram every witch way I can and cannot see anything else that can cause your problem the way you describe but the timer. I would hate to see you buy a timer unnecessarily but I don’t know if we will be able to confirm this with 100% certainty. With that being said at this point of the diagnostic stage (after the last voltage test I gave) if I hadn’t found anything else I would change the timer and hope for the best.

Thank You
by: John

I plugged everything back in and checked for voltage. I had power at both locations to ground and nothing between the two. To my surprise though I also had a fully functional high spin and pump. I was wondering, if it had not worked, short of a loose connection, would that have still been a bad timer? Or would no voltage have been the timer?
I'm curious.
Either way thank you for all the help and time you've spent on my problem. I've already been recommending this site to everyone I talk to and will definitely come back.

RE
by: Shawn

If the motor wasn’t running and you had voltage between the two wires and voltage at ground at the lid switch the timer would be bad. Having no voltage between means that the contacts in the timer were closed (as they should be)because you don't get voltage across a closed switch. With the contacts closed the motor should run and it did. I hope it works for you now but I don’t know why it didn’t before.

Since it did work this time now we don’t know if the continuity test was a waste of time or not. The results of the continuity test suggested that the timer was not bad but now it is working so who knows.

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