Hello, I'm Rory from eSpares and in this video I'm going to show you how to replace the carbon
brushes in this Bosch washing machine. So what is a carbon brush? Well this is what
they look like. All electric motors have brushes, and the job of the brush is to conduct electricity
from the fixed parts of the motor through the moving parts of the motor.
I’m going to use this vacuum motor as an example to show you how carbon brushes work.
The brush sits in this part here, and as you should be able to see, the brush is in contact
with the moving part of the motor. The moving part of the motor is called the armature and
the specific part of the armature that the brush is in contact with is called the commutator.
Now because brushes are continually in contact with moving parts of the motor, they are designed
to become worn down over time. Most brushes are made of carbon and can be replaced when
they become worn down. This is a brand new carbon brush, but old brushes can be worn
down almost to the end.
Now, the symptoms of a worn down carbon brush in your washing machine are if the motor runs
half-heartedly, if it runs intermittently, if there are sparks coming from it, or if
it doesn’t run at all. Now, safety first; always make sure that your washing machine
is switched off at the wall before you get going. What I’m going to need to do first
is remove the top and the side panels from the machine. To do this ill need a torx head
screwdriver, if you don’t have one of them you can get a torx set on the eSpares website.
OK, now I’ve removed the back panel from the washing machine we can clearly see the
motor down here situated just below the drum. It could be that your model of washing machine
allows you to replace the carbon brushes without actually removing the motor, but I’m going
to remove the motor from this washing machine anyway.
The first thing I’ll need to do is take off the drive belt. Just like that. Next I
just need to remove these wires at the back here. And, now using a socket spanner, I just
need to loosen these nuts.
And now I can remove the motor from the washing machine by getting hold of it and just pulling
away.
You might have to give it a “bit of welly” but I’ll come out.
So here we have our motor and the two carbon brushes are situated here and here. I don’t
know if you can see this on the camera but the carbon brushes are actually going into
the commutator at an angle. Hence the carbon brushes themselves have an angled end. You
must make sure you put them in the right way round because if you don’t then it will
just be the sharp end of the brush rubbing against the commutator and you don’t want
that.
The easiest way to make sure that you are putting them in the right way round is by
taking a note of which way the old brushes are positioned.
So I’m going to turn the motor on their side. I’m going to start by removing this
clip. And now I’m going to get these teeth and feed them out so I can remove the old
carbon brush. Like that. Now I can just pull it out.
So here we have our old carbon brush. As you can see it’s not that much shorter than
our new carbon brush and there’s no sign of visible damage on it. So you wouldn’t
actually need to replace this one. Obviously I’m going to do so for the purpose of the
video.
Now I’m going to put the new brush in, obviously making sure it’s the right way round. And
now what I need to do is feed the spring down as well, making sure it’s not getting caught
on the side and this is a pretty fiddly task. You just need to bear with it, it might take
you a while. And there you go. I can now feed the top of it underneath there. And if I just
put that lip in like that I just need to get a screwdriver and rest it in there. Now I
can put my clip on and there we go.
Once you have replaced the first brush; replace the second as well. It’s always recommended
that you replace both carbon brushes at the same time. Once you’ve done that you just
need to put the motor back in the machine and put everything together.
And that’s how you replace carbon brushes in a Bosch washing machine. Carbon brushes
for all makes and models of washing machine are available on the eSpares website. Thanks
for watching.