On Mar 22, 10:47*pm, (Steve Pope) wrote:
I have an old (1986), Whirlpool Design 2000 washer which has
never failed until now. *The symptom is that during agitation,
the agitator (a single-piece design) moves in one direction
only, rather than back and forth. *This causes grinding noises
and clothes trappage at the agitator base. *All the other cycles
work fine. *During spin, the agitator spins freely as it should,
and there is no oil or clutch dust coming out the bottom of
the machine.

I have one opinion that this is likely a transmission failure
and if so I need to junk the thing. *Is it possible that
there's some lesser problem in the agitator mechanism (dogs,
ratchets, etc.) that is causing this? *I'm trying to evaluate
if it's worth having a go at repairing it.

Look up "Whirlpool washing machine parts" using Google and see what
you find. Some of the repair part sites have schematics so you can
see the various parts and assemblies. You can price out possible
things you'd have to replace and maybe get an idea of the difficulty.

Given the age of your machine repairing it may not be very cost
effective.

We had this happen on a different brand and they had to replace the
whole motor assembly but fortunately it was under warranty at the
time. Exact same thing happened some years later and based on what we
didn't pay the first time (the cost was on the form I signed) I just
got a new washer.