Coin jams are probably the most common maintenance repair that a laundry room, or laundromat owner, or landlord has to deal with. Learning how to clear a coin jam can save you the $100+ repair bill from a laundry technician. It can also save you the wrath from frustrated customers who can't use the machine, and the machine keeps making you money.
Maytag back of coin mech showing the long screw
Speed Queen and Huebsch showing the thin rod
When it comes to clearing out coin jams all of the manufacturers have their methods.I'll use Maytag, Speed Queen, and Huebsch in this example.
The most common way is to remove the coin drop from the washer or dryer. This usually involves opening up the top access, panel, and loosening long screws, and then pulling the front plate out of the front of the machine to get out the coin mechanism. Even though the coin mechs for all of the manufactures are usually made by a couple of companies, the way to get the coin mechs out of the machine differs. To get the Maytag bolt out you need a 6.5 mm lug nut and ratchet wrench. For the Speed Queen and Huebsch machines you need a special tool that goes over the long thin rod attached to the screw that holds the coin mech inside the washer. The tool is similar to a straw, that attaches to a ratchet, and then you can unscrew the base plate screw to get the coin mechanism out. Both of these methods can be cumbersome if you don't have flexible fingers, aren't good with tools, or are not tall enough to see inside the access panel and need to sit or kneel on top of the washer.
A lot of operators of laundry machines try using a butter knife, nail file, windshield wiper blade, scissors, or any other piece of metal that will fit inside the coin slot in order to clear the jam without taking the time to open the access panel. While these methods may work for you,
here is another idea that I use to get coins unstuck that works almost every time and is fast:
A pipe clamp.
You want a pipe clamp to be about half an inch wide because that is the proper width of a quarter
How does it work?
Get a pipe clamp that is about a half inch in width.
Straighten the pipe clamp so it is not quite so curved.
Insert the end of the pipe clamp into the coin slot and push it in only far enough until you can feel it hitting a quarter.
DON'T RAM IT INTO THE COIN SLOT VIOLENTLY!
Push the pipe clamp gently inward, you might have to apply a little force.
The pipe clamp will either push the quarter down into the coin box, or it will act like a fish tape and pull the quarter back far enough to free up room in the coin mechanism for the quarters to fall through.
SAFETY TIPS:
=Be careful that you don’t just jam the pipe clamp into the coin slot really fast because you can break something on the coin mechanism.
=Keep the pipe clamp as straight as possible. The clamp naturally wants to stay curved because that was the way it was made and was stored.
=Depending which way you insert the pipe clamp into the coin slot it will curve to the right or to the left. Just ramming it in and out of the coin slot will get the pipe clamp stuck in the coin mechanism or break some of the small plastic parts on the coin mech.
=Depending on what type of coin mechanism you are working on, the slight curve in the pipe clamp will work better one way or the other either facing left or right.
I had a position with a company where I was in charge of 51 laundromats. I had to often visit 4-8 per day. As experienced as I am it still took at least 10 minutes to get the coin mech out, clear the jam, and put the mech back into the machine. Each store would have two or three jams. The pipe clamp method I could clear almost all jams in a minute or less. For a common day of three or four coin jams per store, this saved a lot of time getting the jams cleared up so customers could use the machine.
The only time that I have seen this method not work, is when there are five or more quarters stuck in the coin slide. At that point, you don’t have much of a choice, except to remove the coin mechanism as you would. Give the pipe clamp a try. It takes a little bit of finesse and patience at first, but I think you’ll find it works faster and most of the time.
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