On May 26, 11:25 am, (Beachcomber) wrote:
It's not a danger _unless_ there's a failure somewhere that allows a
hot conductor to make contact w/ the frame -- that's the purpose of
the ground.

Leakage from the windings to the frames of electric motors in large
appliances is quiet common and the reason why there are such strict
grounding rules. Air conditioners are notorious for this, but it can
also occur in washing machines and dryers. You don't really want to
claim that an ungrounded washing machine can somehow be considered
"safe".

It still takes a failure to have a problem...while the mechanism you
pose is possible, certainly nothing I've ever seen flagged as
prevalent...in OP's case, while I certainly agreed it should have the
ground attached, it's pretty clear he's had 20 years w/o any
significant problem--that qualifies as pretty safe in my book.
Granted it only takes a failure to now occur to cause a problem, the
chances are pretty good it won't happen the next five minutes until he
can attach the ground wire...