Morphy Richards 4409 toaster repair

[Okto1984]

I found this toaster at the car boot sale. I'm guessing it's from the 1960s. I've seen others with funky colours and paint on the sides, but this is just chrome. The case is nearly perfect and it looked very clean inside, so I suspect little used despite the age. The man had tested it and found it worked - although I now think he got lucky. I suspected the fabric cable was bad as it felt really hard and brittle. I opened it up before plugging it in, and discovered the insulation had all fallen off and there were bare wires hidden inside the toaster. Everything else looked good however, so I fitted a new fabric cable, and tried it out.

All the elements came on, but it didn't pop up by itself. I found that if you shine a torch inside it, you can see the bimetallic strip and contacts closing as it heats up. But it wasn't popping the toast up. So I cleaned the contacts, and it started working. But it was really slow and burning every piece, even on the lowest setting, which was taking about 4 minutes. It's a surprisingly powerful toaster at 1.2 kW for two slices, so it should be popping up long before then. Seeing as everything was working, just slowly, I made sure the mechanism wasn't catching. That didn't help any, it seemed fine to me, so I took a guess that maybe the wires connecting the last element to the contacts and the solenoid were badly connected. They seemed tight, but I took each apart, cleaned with contact cleaner and connected it again.

It works perfectly now every time. Setting one popped the toast out after about 40 seconds, and each higher setting adds a little time.

And the toast is good too. Because the elements burn so hot, it makes that nice, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside toast that most modern toasters don't seem to make. And it makes toast really fast!

[Leon Crampin]

These are good toasters - with one design flaw.

The pair of contacts which closes when the bimetal timer strip is hot, is prone to not making contact.

As you will know, the purpose of these contacts is to short out the bimetal heater coil so that the strip returns to its rest position, ready for the next piece of bread. When the contacts fail, the strip does not return, and the toaster does not trip - burnt toast.

I never really found a complete answer to this - abrasive cleaning of the contacts lasts for about 6 months.

Leon.

[MurphyNut]

I had perhaps a slightly earlier Morphy Richards toaster that we used for many years until it finally pegged out. I've never bought one since that was anywhere near as good.
The chrome on new ones is so thin it started to rust on top.
I've kept the old one, I'm now wondering if I might be able to get it down from the loft and fix it.

[Okto1984]

Hi Leon, my toaster terminology is very limited, but what you've described sounds a bit different to what I found inside this toaster. In this one the bimetal strip is heated by the elements that toast the bread, and it bends until it closes the contacts that connect a solenoid that flips the catch which holds the carriage down. The number selector just moves the contacts closer or further apart. As the toaster cools, the bimetal strip returns to normal, but if you try to make more toast right away it pops up early. So, the resting state is open rather than closed. Anyway, I cleaned the contacts and wire connections with servisol contact cleaner and a cotton bud, which wasn't abrasive, so shouldn't cause any wear. My discovery that the connections in the wire to the switch and solenoid needed cleaning suggests that perhaps in a borderline state you could keep needing to clean the switch contacts, but keeping those really clean might just be masking a weaker connection elsewhere? So far so good, but only time will tell if this cleaning effort lasts.

Hi MurphyNut, I'd forgotten how good vintage toast tastes, so I would say try the old one again

[McMurdo]

I rescued what I think is a similar one, orange enamel with a sort of flower on the side. I cleaned the contacts and got it working but it was terribly inconsistent and just as you thought you'd got the setting right it went and burnt a slice or popped it out with a suntan. If I remember right you pull the knob off and screw a hex nut in and out to calibrate it.

[Okto1984]

Hi Kevin, your toaster also sounds different. I'm wondering if they made a few different types of these that look similar on the outside? My one seems pretty consistent - provided it cools a bit between uses.

[threeseven]

Well done, an appliance from the quality and serviceable age! I have a Russel Hobbs version, acquired many years from a relative who had done a house clearance, he thought it was my type of thing!
Shamefully, I have yet to even try it, as the mains cable had been cut off. As my hard working Dualit requires a service I might now re-commission the Hobbs as a service rotation toaster!

[Phil G4SPZ]

Well done! The last proper toaster I worked on had a bimetal strip which heated up until it curled sufficiently to mechanically 'latch' into the trip mechanism, which shorted out the bimetallic heating element. The bimetal strip then started to cool, and as it did so, pulled the release mechanism until it tripped. Browning control was by moving the trip latch nearer to or further away from the bimetal strip. Hence, roughly half-way through cooking the toast, the machine emitted a faint 'click' and a minute or so later, out popped the toast.

My most recent toaster was a disappointment. It was full of valves, on a metal chassis, and it would insist on playing Radio 4 all the time. Barely room for the toast, which took ages to cook anyway and tasted of hot dust...