10mm will do the trick.
You are going to find that you'll get down to the main shaft and gearbox and can't get any further.
You will find that Electrolux (who own Simpson) will not help without they can get a dollar out of it. They offer only two avenues of help: 1. Pay $1.50 a minute to talk to a serviceman or 2. Pay a serviceman for a home service call.
That is: you never reach the status of valued customer or customer worth support - you never graduate beyond cash cow.
A service man will tell you that getting the main shaft out (to get at the main bearing, the probably source of a leak) is just a question of struggling as best you can.
My serviceman told me you can't guarantee you won't break everything in attempting this. He told me they themselves don't like to do this job because they can't guarantee they won't break everything.
He told me you've just got to try to clean the accretions off the shaft as best you can so's it will slide through the bearing.
He told me nothing useful and he misled me.
In fact you should find a washer that will just nicely fit the diameter of the main axle shaft. Drop it over the shaft. Get a box spanner and drop it over the shaft onto the washer.
Start bashing with a hammer.
It will come out, eventually, unharmed.
This assembly - called 'the transmission' by my serviceman - cannot be fixed if you damage it. Said my serviceman. As I damaged it when I bashed it out with the box spanner and without the washer.
But in fact it only needs a couple of seals which surely should be obtainable.
If you don't use a washer you damage the top seal with your box spanner. But you'd expect to replace seals anyway, so no real damage.
david hawcroft, April 2006
