[odhinn]

The door on my Maytag MAH2400AWW compact front-loading washer cracked at the top part of the hinge. I disassembled the door and epoxied the broken bits back into place with a little reinforcement

Now that I'm onto reassembly, I realize that I can't figure out how to reassemble the door latch / handle / spring mechanism. It seems simple enough:

- the metal hook that goes into the washer body
- the handle that moves the metal hook
- the fulcrum the hook / handle revolve around
- the spring that gives the hook and handle tension

Since the fulcrum is just a plastic pin that only has one position, that leaves 3 pieces: handle, spring, and hook. For the life of I me I can't figure out how those 3 pieces fit together to provide the right tension in the right places. The service manual does not show how to reassemble these pieces.

Anyone know how to do this? Pictures of a working assembled latch from various angles would be great, but any suggestions at all are welcomed.

Thanks,

Jon

[odhinn]

Slept on the problem and figured it out. When disassembling the door cover, the spring popped loose so it wasn't in the original position. Since this is such a poorly engineered design, I'm sure others will be looking for this answer, so here it is for posterity.

The spring has two ends, what I call the "closed" or "loop" end which has a solid "U" of metal coming out of the spring coil, and an "open" or "leg" end which has two pieces of metal coming out of the coil.

The trick is that the "loop" end of the spring must be stuck through the latch hole on the back of the door so that it is pressed up against the back of the metal hook that latches the door to the washer. Then the "legs" of the spring stick up to where they can press against the plastic door handle and keep the handle taut. You will probably have to pull out the pin the spring rotates around in order to put the spring in the proper place. Once the spring is in position, hold the plastic door handle in place against the door cover and lower the cover onto the door and it should all snap into place. Voila! One working door.