What are we thinking!?

Well, we got home from our trip to El Paso and the last load of laundry Holly did was soaked. The spin cycle no longer spins. She showed me the prob, and the motor makes a noise, but no spinnie. Here is how little I know of my washer, and all washers in general. First thing I thought was, "Dang...guess we need to call Sears to come fix it." Then I thought, "Well, maybe its just a broken belt." I decided to just take apart and take a looksie. So we randomly started taking it apart and I finally got online to look up what was going on. After a lot of searching I learn my washer is a direct drive washer, apparently there is no belt. I also learn that a common prob for this washer is that the "motor coupling" breaks or is just worn out. We've had our Kenmore washer/dryer for about 8 years. I think we had the dryer serviced once. So I'm hoping this is the problem. The washer is already taken apart at this point and we just took the opportunity to start cleaning it, gross. But now I know what I am looking for. So after removing the 2 wrong brackets holding the water pump, I replace them and remove the brackets holding the motor. After finally getting the motor off, lo and behold, the motor coupling is broken! Looks to be a $15 part...so just got to find it now. Sears doesn't have parts at their store here. Will look tomorrow to see if a place in town has the part I need. If not, I have to order from Sears online and play the waiting the game.

Hope we didn't just kill our washer.