Changing the Rear Bearing on a Tumble Dyrer

Having a white Knight tumble dyrer 44AS that has developed a very annoying squeak i decided the most likely culbrit was the rear bearing(which actually is a bush) and took off the top lid and found what i thought was a fair amount of play by lifting the drum, so off to ebay where i purchased a kit for about £5 and it appears this kit fits alot of other machines not just white knight so after a scoot round the internet and believing this to be not to bad a job decided to have a go myself ,as im a engineer by trade and the others merely DIYers how hard could it be ;0) lol, well i fitted it in about 1.5 hours but made several mistakes along the way hopefully you will benefit by them.If you can,get another person to help because at certain times it will be a lot easier with another pair of hands-i also advise wearing stout gloves while handling the covers because the edges are very sharp as my right thumb can testify.

Step 1: Step 1 Removing Cover and Supporting Drum

ok first you need to pull the tumble dyrer out and remove the mains plug-next take out the top 3 self tappers(you can see the middle one in the picture)and pull off the lid.Next take out the self tappers holding cover 1 in place and (first tip) as in the next picture- support the drum with  a piece or two of wood-the reason for this is the drum is fastened to the rear cover 2  via the 3 pins ringed in blue and when you've removed all the pins-(except the 4 ringed in red)- the weight drops the drum down onto the motor and believe me its a pig to get everything in line to get it back.Once the drums supported take all of the screws out(except the 4 ringed in red-i did and its difficult to line everything back up so if you can leave them in place),the middle 3 will be tight and pull the cover to one side

Step 2: The Rear Bearing/bush

this what you will be confronted with-the round element and the round plate behind it are screwed to the rear cover by the 4 pins previously ringed in red which hopefully you left in,the next picture shows you the rear bracket holding the bush,my first reaction was how the hell is it held in ?-i cant remember anyone saying you had to drill out rivets ! and of course you dont the 2 screws are reached from inside the drum-this is where the second pair of hands comes in..handy ! as you can see i left cover 1 in place and with out support the drum has dropped down

Step 3: Removing the Bearing Bracket

next tip,get a cloth or kitchen roll and plug the gap below the bearing because i didnt and spent 1/2 hour trying to retrieve screws and washers that fell into the drum space.this picture was taken as i reassembled the bearing hence the copper coloured strip sticking out the top-next photo inside the drum you can see the middle screw through the centre hole the hole above it had the screw holding the copper coloured strip in place and has been removed already. if you havent got anyone to hold the bracket you will have to jam it as picture 3

Step 4: Bearing Bracket

pull the old one off and you should see the difference side by side with the new one,i found even the new one to be a bit  'sloppy' in the bracket and deuced,possibly wrongly, that the whole bush had been rotating in the bracket hole instead of it remaining stationary and rotating on the 'axle' so i wrapped ptfe tape round the outside of the bush before jamming it into the bracket.The last picture shows the bracket hole the bush fits into-the bush is supposed to be fixed into this hole while rotating on the axle in the middle of the triangular bracket.im trying to fish out a self tapper i dropped with  a magnet.

Step 5:

time to refit the new bush-i had a few problems here mainly due to doing the job alone.first i pushed the bush -wrapped in ptfe-into the bracket hole,next i slid the triangular plate axle into the bush,you next have to put a nylon(plastic)washer onto the axle sticking out the far side of the bush,next is the metal washer and self tapper.the self tapper has to be teased into the hole and tightened up from inside the drum-obviously the axle rotates so you have to secure it again-i found the plastic washer tends to 'drop' off the axle so you pinch it between the metal washer and the end of the axle if your not careful-and i wasnt 3 times ! at the finish the metal washer should be hard up against the end of the axle and the nylon washer free floating on the axle-it has a finger stopping it going 360 degrees but as said before it still feels a bit sloppy tho.On the last picture both screws shown are tightened from inside the drum

Step 6: The Copper Coloured Strip

next step is to fit the copper coloured strip-it warns you to apply the conductive grease supplied before fitting this.This is fiddly,you have to fit one end of the strip through the slot you can just see ringed in red while teasing the self tapper that secures it into the bracket hole at the other end before tightening it through the drum hole,simple to say but extremely fiddly to do

Step 7: Refitting the Covers

good news is the bush is now done all you have to do is to refit the covers-hopefully the drum is still in place and on putting the cover back the holes for the self tappers should line up and you screw everything back into place - and all should be well.