I just bought four dogs and fixed my agitator. Say wha? Yup. Saved myself a $70 service call on my washing machine. The agitator on my top loader was no longer working properly, wouldn't draw the clothes down. Went into my local appliance store. Great guy owns the shop. Said "you probably just need some dawgs." (I thought I must have misunderstood him.) Gave me a brief "how to" put them in, said it was real easy. Mmmmmm hmmmm, I thought.
I didn't even know how to get the agitator OFF to begin with. His instructions were not as thorough as I needed, so I went on line. Spent about half an hour looking at different videos and thought I had found the one that most resembled my washer. Got the top cover off (had no idea it just popped off, I thought it was a solid unit - mine looked like the second, flat part he took off in the video below, didn't have the water softener dispenser on top) that was real easy. But how to unscrew the main part where the dogs needed to be replaced? Didn't have the right tool. Wasn't even sure what the right tool would be. Needed something with a large square head. Tried various things, none the right size.
Suddenly spied the fork sitting on top of the drier that I use to open the cat food bin. Stuck the back side of it into the square and gave a twist. Nothing. Kept trying, pushing down and twisting and suddenly something moved! And YES it's unscrewing, unscrewing and voila! Pulled the clutch unit off and there are the little dogs. But how to get them out? I remembered in the videos they said there was a retaining ring. Looked like one solid piece to me. I turn, I twist, finally used my fingernails and sure enough, there WAS a very thin retraining ring. And I skivied it down, removed the old dogs (they really are called dogs), put in the new, cleaned up the entire inside and out of the agitator, put it all back in (found that the back side of a letter opener worked better than the fork as a screwing device) and, holding my breath, turned the unit on. And it WORKED! YAY! Doing a load of sheets as I write. Each time I accomplish something like this, it gives me the courage to attack the next plumbing problem.
What has this to do with quitting smoking? Everything. We have to have the desire to tackle the problem to begin with. Then we have to have a certain amount of curiosity. "I want to stop smoking, how do I go about that?" So we learn how. We come to a support site like EX, and we read. And read. And read. We study it from all angles. We learned everything we can about it. Then we make a plan, we follow it. And we persevere. We don't give up until we have accomplished the task at hand.
And when we get through just one day, smoke free, it gives us a feeling of pride and power and gives us the courage to tackle the next day and the next.
So don't give up if you don't get it right the first time around. Keep working at it until you do.
And for anyone who wants to learn how to fix your washing machine agitator.... it really is easy once you know how.
