When washing, the machines groans, drawing 3 Kw of power before tripping,?

Our Hoover Elite 920, after washing for about 1 minute, groans to a halt, drawing a current of 3 Kw before tripping the overload switch. The bowl can be spun by hand freely, In the anti-clockwise direction, but jams against the friction pads underneath the heavy fly-wheel type unit (gear box?), when turned about 20 to 30 degrees in the clockwise direction. Is this in order? (to provide reaction for the spin drying torque?). In any case, what needs to be done to make it wash properly?