I have just recently replaced the seal on my own Miele 460S using instructions for a W864 seal replacement.
Below is based on and updated from http://www.howtomendit.com/answers.php?id=26275 which in turn is extracted from an internet article by one Neil Lewis (2007) & updated by A.D.King after an actual installation on 30-Jan-2010. Very many thanks to them.
Not to mislead, note these base instructions were for a W864. They have been modifed for a 460S.
I too recommend that only a genuine Meile replacement seal is used. After-market rubber parts are not to be trusted. From experience of car/boat parts e.g. CV joint & gear lever gaiters etc, they just don’t last. The composition of the rubber is wrong, so they harden & split in a much shorter time (say 1 year against 5-10 for the genuine item), so it is a false economy.
The job is not especially easy for an amateur. You won’t want to repeat it too often. It will require patience to get the retaining clips on. It will also take patience and a gentle hand to remove the facings especially the plastic facings which house the dials.
I bought the seal from BuySpares Customer Services www.buyspares.co.uk | 0844 557 5575. The original part, a Miele door gasket, was 75stg plus 7.25stg postage to Ireland (Jan 2013)
All parts listed except for the seal obviously, are reusable.
Tools required are described within the text below.
The procedure to replace the door seal is as follows : -
1. Open the glass door & pull the machine out from under the worktop, then turn off its electricity supply by unplugging its power lead from the wall. Be careful in pulling out the machine you do not pull the hoses away from any wall fittings. Similarly in replacing the machine, make sure the hoses are not kinked.
2. Either side of the top panel towards the front are 2 x white blanking caps. Carefully prise these off using a knife blade or similar. Remove the 2 x revealed countersunk Pozidrive screws using a small Pozidrive screwdriver. Lift the top panel & slide it back a little to free the Control panel & Soap box receptacle mouldings which are attached to the front panel. Or just take off the top panel completely, there being no other fixings other than two locating lugs at the rear.
2a. Remove the water inlet hose from its fixing at the top of the seal. Simply pull it up and away. Leave the other end attached within the machine.
3. Completely remove the powder dispenser drawer (it will come out so far and stop), then there is a small red button at the rear of the dispenser which you need to depress to remove it fully. You'll see this button once you've withdrawn the drawer to its stop position.
4. Now look at the front aperture of the Soap box receptacle (you have of course removed the actual drawer earlier). There is one Pozidrive screw at the bottom left hand corner in the soap box receptacle housing. Remove it with the same screwdriver fitting you used earlier.
4a. Here's a tricky procedure. You must remove the entire front panel including the dials (note including the dials not dials separately. If you start to take the front apart in pieces, chances are something will definitly break and you will ahve an ugly glue repair to plastic. And that's if it can be glued!) . So you've removed the left hand side screw, now go to the far right. There is a plastic rivet with a bolt screwed thru its middle to give extra friction to the fixing. Access to the bolt is nigh impossible without splittign apart the plastic controls. If your are gentle but firm and using a flat head screwdriver for leverage you can ease it out of its metal frame fixings. Do this here and with the other rivet type fitting which is on the right hand side of the soap box receptacle. Observe from the open top that there are two plastic pieces with "barb" ends that need to be flicked up so they may move through their repsective apertures in the metal frame and allow the plastic facing to be removed. THey may flick down again but it is no problem to flick them up.
So, there are three key fixtures holding the front plastic control panel. One is an easily accessed pozidrive screw and the other two are difficult to access plastic rivets/lugs which are best eased/levered out from the metal frame.
Removing this panel reveals two pozidrives, one at each side, of the top edge of the steel front.
5. Using a 10mm AF hex socket bit (if I remember rightly), undo and remove the 1 x stainless steel hex head bolt, underneath the chassis door seal and hidden by the door when it closes. Note, this bolt hels secure the front panel to the machine chassis; it does not retain the door seal. So don't worry, the front will not drop off. There are six more bolts to undo. Two at each corner on the lower edge, and two on the receiver for the door-lock.
6. Open the square pump access door (lower left hand side of the front panel). Remove the little door using a screw driver to lever the hinges. This is the correct procedure but just be careful not to be heavy handed. You don't want to break the palstic lugs.
7. Now, you'll need to get on your hands and knees. You DO NOT need to tilt, or lift up the washing machine to do the next bit. Locate the underside of the front panel right at the bottom. You'll notice that it sticks out about half an inch or so and is proud of the kick plate which extends right down to the floor. You need to look on the underside of the front panel, about an inch or so in from the left hand edge. There you will see a spring loaded clip, which when closed, locates into a slot in the underside of the front panel. Using a stubby (short but chunky) flat bladed screwdriver, you need to carefully lever the spring clip down (to open) whilst gently pulling the whole front panel (from the left side) ajar. It will just suddenly pop out once you've done it.
7a. Remove the two pozidrives from the door-lock receiver. Then remove the four pozidrives (two each side) now revealed on the lower edge of the steel front panel. Careful the door now needs to be supported.
8. Now carefully ease outward the whole front panel.
9. Observe that the rubber seal is attached to the front panel by a steel wire with a spring holding both ends of the ring securely together. It is located at 6 o'clock. This is difficult to reattach. However, next, unseat the old rubber door seal from around the chassis aperture (door opening area on the chassis, not the front panel, obviously), so that the seal flops away from the chassis and lies just inside the machine. Either pull it out firmly using your hand or gently prise a flat head under the wire and pop it towards you. Since this is an old failed seal it should not matter if you nip or pierce the rubber.
10. You will notice that there is a steel round wire clamp band, holding the door seal in place around the outer static drum side. On the right hand side at about the 3 o'clock position, you’ll see its tensioning screw. It’s tricky to get at & requires patience. You will need an angle drive (offset) screwdriver (e.g. Spec Tools - SkewDriver Pro http://www.spectools.com/ available from Amazon etc) for efficient removal & especially re-installation, with various length extension pieces. Power it with an electric screwdriver because the screw is very long & will take all day by hand with much swearing. Undo the screw using a 7mm or 8mm AF hex socket bit (I can’t remember which), to the screw’s max length. Try to avoid completely disengaging it from its special clasp nut, otherwise this nut & the screw’s under head plain washer will fall down into the machine. If so, locate these and retain them for later.
11. Now remove the steel clamp band by extending it to its maximum opening by moving its 2 x lugs apart. Then pull it out through the hole/door aperture in the chassis.
12. Locate the seal’s small rubber tag at about the 12 o'clock position, where the seal is attached to the outer static drum and carefully tug it. The seal will then come away from the drum. Remove the old seal completely.
12a. You'll notice that where the water inlet hose used to be attached there is a plastic fitting inset into the rubber. This plastic fitting needs to be re-used since it does not come with the replacement seal. It is easy to pop out with your hands. It can be given a squirt of WD40 to make it easier to pop into the new seal.
13. Carefully clean around the inner rim of the outer drum to remove all trace of old soap sludge & any limescale using a suitable cleaner e.g. Viakal Limescale Remover. Lime is most likely to be found at the bottom of the rim. Clean to a depth of about ½” (finger tip depth). I don't know if I should have but I used some WD40. Anywhere where the seal was close to the drum it required some lubricant.
14. Using your new seal, place this correctly around the drum (there is a lip on the seal and this has to go over the rim of the outer static drum. Ensure the 'tag' is at the 12 o'clock position. The seal goes over the outer drum surprisingly easily & can come away quite easily to, whilst struggling to refit the clamp band, so keep checking it’s still in position.
15. If you need to reassemble the screw into the clamp, note that the clasp nut has a chamfered corner side & a square cornered side. Ensure the nut straddles the clamp band’s round lug, with the nut’s chamfered side oriented inner most, so to prevent it cutting into the soft rubber seal.
16. Feed the assembled clamp band through the chassis & over the new seal so the screw is again positioned at the 3 o’clock position with the screw’s hex head at the top. Ensure the clamp band is located right at the back behind a little raised ridge in the seal. Check this is so all the way around. Tighten the screw in stages, rechecking the bands position each time. Power the electric screwdriver using the hex socket bit with one hand whilst holding the wire clamp band in place with the other. This is fiddly, so take your time.
Warning – get this wrong & you will flood the kitchen floor.
Warning – do not be tempted to use the optional slot in the screw, because a flat driver bit can easily slip out of the slot (guaranteed to) & will most likely stab & puncture you nice new expensive seal, rendering it useless.
Make sure that you do up the clamp band sufficiently. If you find the screw does not seem to be getting tighter in relation to how closed the clamp’s lugs are to each other, then the wire band has probably come adrift, so check before any damage is done.
17. Carefully pull the seal onto & around the front chassis aperture. Put a tiny bit of lubricant in the recess of the seal designed to take the steel band. Attach the two ends of the steel band together using the spring. This is awkward and hard because the spring has to be fully extended and therfore fully tensioned to meet and catch the loops at either end of the band. This is how I got round it. With a piece of string I tied one end to the hinge of the door as close to the steel cover as possible (to get the correct lead). I threaded the other end thru the left hand side loop of the steel band, then on to the right hand loop. By pulling th string with my left hand it was closing the gap between the loops on the band using the door hinge as an anchor. As the gap closed I was able to grip and stretch the spring with a pliers sufficient to catch each loop. I'm sure there's is some magic trick to doing this but this worked for me.
When correctly installed, there should be no obvious stretching, twisting or wrinkles.
18. Reassembly of the Front & Top Panels etc is then the reverse of removal.
19. Finally, once you're done, put the machine through a few rinse cycles (where the water level is high) and look for leaks. If you have a leak, it is likely that your door seal has a rip/tear, or that it has not been correctly located around the drum - in which case you'll need to investigate.
Marcus McQuiston with thanks to Andrew D King and all others who contributed to the above.
samaki
January 2013
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