PAV2300AWW MAYTAG TOP LOAD BELT DRIVE

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Just posting an example problem I had and what the solution was. 

I didn't find the solution here per se but I found some clues. 

Problem: Washer very off balance as it starts to spin

Problem: Washer basket spins while agitating. 

Problem: Laundry has gathered to one side during the wash cycle which causes off balance problem. 

Solution: 

I found that the brake assembly was heavily saturated in thick gooey oil. 

Insight: I speculate that the transmission leaks a few drops over the course of a year and as the years compound it became enough to cover the whole brake disc assembly as well as the brake material and the brake drum. This caused the brake to have no grip on the drum and therefore everything was able to spin freely all the time. 

I had searched extensively regarding this problem before finally figuring it out on my own for the most part. 

The fix:

I feel confident this repair requires the entire tub and transmission assembly to be removed from the washer cabinet. You can easily find videos how to do this if you were to search YouTube. It's not that hard to do actually. It requires a putty knife, two or three nut drivers, a pair of slip-joint pliers, and some towels to soak up spilled emotions. 

Once it's out you should turn it upside down to work on it. The brake drum has 8 screws holding it on and it under compression from a large spring under it. The official way to take it off is to replace two of the screws with longer screws which you will see in a video but personally I was able to safely remove it by using gloves to cover it and apply a little down pressure while I unscrewed the last two screws. There's pressure to push it up and off from the spring but realistically it's not going to fly off across the room. 

You're supposed to use those long screws to put it back on, but of the 10s of thousands of screws and hardware I have saved I could not find the prescribed size. I now realize that some people use oversized self tapping screws which essentially make a new bigger hole. With help of another person I was able to press the drum back down and get two screws threaded in. It's wasn't easy but it wasn't impossible either. 

I had a brake disc on hand for some reason but I now realize that my existing brake and drum were not worn out, they just needed to be thoroughly cleaned. I used Super Clean. 

Further insight:  My view of the operation of the brake is that the brake is always applied when the machine sit idle. What I'm not sure about is how the brake releases or perhaps it does not. I theorize the motor overpowers the brake holding power but otherwise the brake has enough holding power from that sping to hold the tub from turning otherwise. 

Possibly the transmission somehow disengages the spring pressure for the spin cycle, I'm not sure, someone else can provide insight to this. I do know there is a bearing on the brake disc that has to be swapped to the new one, and I know it won't work without it; because a friend forgot to swap it and everything worked great but the drum would not spin 

For me, everything went back to working great. 

I believe the brake slipping during agitation caused the laundry to pile up on one side because it was not agitating correctly and therefore not distributing the laundry evenly. 

Maybe this will help someone some day.