Washing machine door seal metal wire - advice?

[Angilion]

I noticed a piece of very rusted metal wire poking out of the door seal on my very old washing machine.

It appears to be part of a ring going around the seal, inside a flap, and it appears to have just rusted through over the years.

My washing machine doesn't leak, so the seal itself is still fine. I can find parts and videos on replacing the entire door seal, but that doesn't seem to be necessary. Can I just replace the ring? Do I need to? It seems to work fine without it, but I'm assuming that it must have a purpose.

 

[Angilion]

Ah! My precious. I see you have my ring.

Thanks for that, it gave me a bit of a giggle.

 

[Angilion]

You can replace the wire on it's own (IIRC the actual rubber seal doesn't come with it), but from my experience with changing the rubber door seals on a few washing machines, it's a real PITA to get it back in place.

And by PITA I mean the sort of thing you can spend ages doing, and end up swearing like a sailer whose just had his wallet nicked by a Thai ladyboy.

I was hoping that wasn't the case. What's the problem with fitting a new one? Is it under a lot of tension, so it's very hard to get it properly positioned without it popping back out over and over again? Is it something that can be made easier with appropriate tools? I've had loads of bother with various jobs because I didn't have the right tools for the job.

 

[Angilion]

Cheers for the advice. I'll pop into a spares place tomorrow and see if they have the right one for my machine. Then I'll do the fitting that's an easy/hard 2 minute/30+ minute job

Maybe it depends on the washing machine and if so maybe I'll be lucky.