It's a bit complicated, but I've had the same problem and solved it without replacing the unit. I'll try to explain what I did; Here goes:
PROBLEM
Inside the unit is a nozzle that is rotated by a set of cogs to direct the water to one of the five powder hoppers in the drawer. My problem was that this nozzle had gummed up with limescale, wouldn't turn, so the loud clicking noise was the cogs moving past one another rather than turning.
WHAT YOU NEED
Phillips screwdrivers size 2 and 1
Silicon grease (available from any DIY store)
SOLUTION
CHECK WHETHER THE NOZZLE IS STUCK:
- First unplug the machine from the mains
- Undo the two screws on the back of the machine that hold the top in place, slide the top back, then lift off to remove (take out the felt pad as well)
- on the right hand side of the machine there is a large white plastic unit which is the water dispenser. remove the two screws holding the black cover fixed to the top of this. This cover reveals three cogs which control the nozzle, on mine they were
orange = front left
yellow = back
white = front right
So I'll use the colours to describe them :
- Lift off the white cog
- gently remove the yellow cog, DON'T twist or force the shaft it's fixed to, this is a very delicate part.
(don't worry about their orientation, if you've had the clicking noise then the orientation is wrecked anyway and we'll be repositioning them later)
- try to rotate the orange cog using your fingers. If it won't move easily in either direction, you've got the same problem I had. If it does move easily, go to 'cog setting' below and hope it was a one-off problem!
DIS-ASSEMBLE THE WATER DISPENSER
- Pull out your soap drawer and remove it
- Remove the control panel (7 screws).
First remove the two white screws on the left side of the machine.
Next remove the five screws that were hidden behind the front of the soap drawer.
Ease the control panel forward and look at the shafts behind the control knob - the smaller one fits inside the bigger one, so gently ease the panel off, making sure you don't twist or break the shafts
- the ribbon cable is easiest to disconnect at the far end inside the machine, pull the plug straight up with a wiggle and it will disconnect, remove the control panel with ribbon cable.
- The metal bracket (that the control panel was screwed onto) is held by four screws, two either side. Remove these screws then the bracket slides up then out. It's still held by the cable to the switch behind the control knob, so lift away the right hand side but leave it attached to the machine.
- Now that the bracket is loose, the water dispenser can be removed. First take out the four small screws at the back (around the area of the cogs), then, with a flat bladed screwdriver, release the six black clips (three down either side) that hold the white water dispenser to the black water 'funnel' below. This is a bit fiddly, and I've found it's easier to start from the back left hand side, release the three clips down the left, then it can be lifted out of the three clips on the right hand side. BE VERY CAREFUL of the little shaft that turns the yellow cog - the bits below this are fragile. There's also a ledge on the dispenser that fits under the right hand side of the machine, but once you've got the left side loose pull the whole unit to the left and up and it comes out fairly easily.
Congratulations, you've got the dispenser out, so if you can't fix it and you need to replace it, you're halfway there!
LUBRICATION
- Look at the underside of the dispenser below the orange cog and you'll find the water nozzle. Clean off any limescale around this and you'll see that as it rotates there is a 'rack' of pits and peaks in the plastic that hold it in one of five positions. Somewhere in there is a spring but I couldn't separate the orange cog from the nozzle to get to it (please post a solution if you know how).
I packed silicon grease into the pits, and by pulling the nozzle out against the spring pushed as much grease as I could in towards the spring. By twisting this backwards and forwards I was able to loosen it so that I could easily turn the nozzle by twisting the orange cog with my fingers.
Back in the machine, there is a black rubber washer that the nozzle sits on, I also removed this washer and lubricated both sides with the grease.
REPLACEMENT
- Refit the water dispenser (tuck the right hand ledge under the frame and clip back on the six clips. BE CAREFUL with the little drive shaft for the yellow cog). Leave the four small screws out for now as the clips will hold it in place.
- Refit the metal bracket
- Refit the control panel and clip the ribbon cable back in place
- Refit the powder drawer
COG SETTING
This is one of those things where a picture would be worth a thousand words, but as I can't put pictures on this site, the words will have to do!
- Turn the orange cog anti-clockwise as far as it will go, (putting the nozzle to direct the water to the conditioner drawer)
- Look closely at the orange cog and you'll see that the last-but-one tooth at each end of the row is shorter than the rest. Looking from above and standing at the front of the machine, I call the rightmost tooth on this cog number 1, the short tooth number 2 etc. (my cog has 17 teeth)
- Position the white cog so that (looking from above) the leftmost tooth on the top (incomplete) row of this cog is between teeth 2 and 3 of the orange cog. This should be such that if the white cog rotates anti-clockwise it will turn the orange cog.
Now the difficult bit:
- The shaft that the yellow cog fits on has four vertical 'webs' running down it. Look closely and you'll see that one of these is bigger than the other three. As you would expect, if you look carefully at the centre of the yellow cog it has three small slots and one bigger one spaced around the hole.
- This shaft can be VERY CAREFULLY rotated if you pull it gently upwards against it's spring and wiggle it while twisting it. NEVER force it, the cogs underneath are VERY fragile. If it won't turn, just let go, and try again.
- Look again at the white cog, and you'll see that two of the teeth on the lower (complete) set of teeth have no slot between them, they make a tooth that is 'double width'.
- Look at the yellow cog and you'll see that it has a 'double width' slot on it's lower row.
- The challenge is to rotate the yellow cog's shaft so that you can fit the yellow cog on it, aligning the double-width slot on the yellow cog with the big tooth on the white cog. This is just a case of trial and error, but is the key to getting everything back together.
COMPLICATED BIT OF EXPLANATION!!
The yellow cog only ever turns clockwise and the white cog is a clever bit of engineering allowing AEG to move the nozzle (orange cog) backwards and forwards across the five positions.
The yellow cog turns the orange cog anti-clockwise until it runs out of teeth, then the white cog turns the orange cog the other way.
After a full rotation of the yellow cog, the orange one has moved clockwise to the stain-treatment position and the by-pass beyond, then anti-clockwise back to the conditioner position.
TESTING
Once I'd replaced the yellow cog, I wanted to test it before I put the covers back on. Obviously there is water and 240v electricity inside the machine, so every health and safety rule says that you don't do this, but I've always had a laissez-faire attitude to life, so I did it anyway. It's your risk.
- Plug the machine back in.
- Run the pump out programme otherwise the control system gets confused if it can sense water in the machine.
- Turn the knob to off, then back to any of the 30 degree programs (these are quicker). Press start.
- After a few seconds, the yellow cog will start to rotate and the orange cog should move with it.
If it doesn't turn and the cogs still click past one another, then you'll need to do more to loosen the nozzle, or in the worst case replace the water dispenser.
If the orange cog turns, water flows without leaking and all sounds good, then you've solved your problem!
I watched mine through the entire cycle, as the cog moved and water flowed into the main wash, stain treatment and conditioner sections before replacing the black cover and the four small screws, then the top of the machine.
Touch wood, all has been ok ever since, and I hope this is useful to someone else.
Dave, January 2009
