Dishwasher repairman

[vark]

In this thread we answer questions about dishwasher repair.

But foist, a few observations about the general state of dishwashers in general. Dishwashers are built to last exactly one month over the factory warranty. No more no less. IF you buy an extended warranty the service department will use some weird sub-ether signal to instruct your dishwasher to stop working exactly one month over the warranty date. So extended warranties are pointless when it comes to dishwashers.
Another thing I noticed was the dedication to cost savings versus price point. All dishwashers are now built on the Revell Snap-Tite plan. There are almost no removable fasteners in today’s dishwashers. Everything is click together, snap together plastic. I bet Flack could 3-D print almost every working part on a dishwasher and make it better quality to boot.

We bought our dishwasher three years ago, when we moved into our new Casa del AArdvark. It wasn’t top of the line but it wasn’t a bottom feeder either. I started calling it Jorge. (Whore-hay) The Mexican household servant. Jorge worked just fine for about a year and a half then we noticed that the dishes weren’t getting as clean as they used to get. So we’d just run another cycle. It didn’t matter, it worked while we slept and the most we had to do was take the clean dishes out in the morning. Then as the months rolled by Jorge was getting worse and worse at his job. The pods weren’t dissolving all the way and the dishes were still dirty. The first and only serviceman we contacted about it said the water was too hot and the enzymatic reactions were diminished.
This from a guy that didn’t even open the thing and look inside. I called bullshit after he left because there’s a heating coil built into dishwashers that heats the water up to slightly below boiling. Enzymatic reactions, my ass!
So it’s on to the internet and see what others have to say. Meanwhile were back to doing dishes by hand. Not a bad thing, we did it for twenty years while living in the city but we PAID money for this thing and now it’s half dead. There were all kinds of internet reasons why dishwashers wont clean dishes, most of them didn’t apply to us. The fixes that did apply to us proved to be useless after we tried them.
So today I girded my loins and lugged my toolbox into the kitchen and had a go. How hard could it be?
Actually, not hard at all. Once I got it pulled out from it’s hole I was able to crawl around and have a close look at the guts. The circulation pump was working but it was making a funny noise. “Hum,” says I, “let me look into this a little closer.” So I unclipped the plastic doodads and pulled it apart. Turns out the impeller disk was detached from the motor spindle. They used a brass insert in the center of the plastic impeller mounted on a stainless steel shaft. The brass had been worn away to nothing.

[AArdvark]

Going to finish this tomorrow, not that its all exciting or anything

[Casual Observer]

No, this is interesting. I'm constantly amazed by how shittily everything is made now and actually fixing something in our throwaway culture is a rare thing. I've had dishwashers in my last 3 apartments but by then we were so used to doing dishes Manually we've never once bothered to use one. My newest pet peeve about appliances is how most vaccuums are total pieces of plastic shit.

[AArdvark]

Funny cause I still have my Kirby Heritage 2 vacuum. It's heavy as hell but with all the steel and aluminum parts you just can't kill it.

THE
KEEPS ON SUCKING
AARDVARK

[Flack]

Our dishwasher quit working about a year ago. After shutting the door and trying to start a wash cycle, all the lights would simply flash. Google led me to believe that either the latch was broken or the electronic sensor had gone out. When entering the kitchen and looking from the side, I could tell the bottom half of the dishwasher door was sticking out an inch further than the top of the door. My first assumption was that one of the kids stood on the door while it was open and bent the hinges. I tried manhandling the door, but couldn't get anything to change. After looking closer, I saw several of the screws on the inside of the door were loose, almost hanging out. Using a Torx driver, I tightened them all down. Surprisingly, the door suddenly shut properly and the outside of the door was perfectly vertical. None of the repair articles or videos I found mentioned this as a potential issue. Balls!

Now that the dishwasher's been working great, we're having issues with the clothes dryer and the refrigerator. To dry clothes, we have to run the dryer through three cycles. The lint trap is clean and so is the hose to the vent. Either the actual vent is blocked, or it's time for a new dryer. As for the fridge, the door water and ice dispenser has stopped working (again). Last time I fixed it by pulling out wires from underneath the fridge, snipping one, and reconnecting them. It's not working again, and if I have to call a repairman I'm going to have to make up a story about how someone else did that shoddy repairwork.

[AArdvark]

So, after determining that the brass insert was stripped down to nothing, our hero AArdvark went to his trusty Gerstner toolbox and pulled out his thread gauges and tap set. Seeing as how the shaft threads were 1/4-20 (very common) I proceeded to drill all the way through the impeller and tap the remaining brass to fit.
Interesting note. The reason they use brass inserts on a stainless shaft is that in the event of catastrophic failure, (like mine) the brass will strip out before the stainless. It's a hell of a lot easier to replace a buck fifty impeller than it is a motor shaft.
Unfortunately, you just cant buy a new impeller, you have to replace the whole unit. That's just how Sears/Kenmore works. fuckers! Why sell a buck fifty part when you can sell a whole replacement unit for seventy five?
Screw that! (literally!) I re-tapped the remaining brass and screwed that be-aitch right back on. I applied some J-B Weld epoxy to keep it from ever slipping again.
Don't know how that will hold up in the hot, hot water though. If it fails again I will turn another insert out of stainless steel and stick that together till death do they part.
So now Jorge is happy again. So is the missus, which is the main thing.

THE
RED AND BLUE CAPE
AARDVARK

[AArdvark]

Only thing I know about icemakers is that the auger thingie used to keep the cubes from freezing together is on a plastic drive, which will strip out in a week trying to churn up the mini icebergs that form in refrigerator ice bins.
My brother replaced his twice before giving it up as throwing good money after a bad design.

THE
ARCTIC CIRCLE
AARDVARK

[Billy Mays]

Why did you go with JB Weld instead of a silver bearing solder?

[AArdvark]

Soldering would heat the plastic impeller up and melt away the pressfit that holds the brass to the plastic. I tried that first but quickly decided that heat would mess up more than it would fix. Hence the epoxy.

THE
2 PART
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Yeah, comeon Mays, get your shit together.

[AArdvark]

While I'm at it I'm gonna replace all the plastic tray lugs. The little plastic wheels that the dish rack rolls in and out. They keep falling off because they are plastic. Gonna have my no.3 nephew print me out some new ones. Built to my specs so they will never come loose again.

THE
DESIGN
AARDVARK

[AArdvark]

Well, that fix lasted a whole five cycles before it came apart again. So I either magically buy another impeller or toe the line buy the whole circulation pump. There may be a third option involving me making a replacement insert for the center of the impeller.
This fix is moving into picture territory so everyone can follow along.

THE
TURN THE PAGE
AT THE DING
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

You know what it takes to fix dishwashers? BRASS BALLS.

[AArdvark]

Got me some industrial strength adhesive stuff from work. The kind of stuff the Coyote would use on the Road Runner. Once it sets up it would hold a train together. In fact, that's what it does, sort of. If this fix fails then I'll have to buy a replacement pump. Details and pix on Sunday.

THE
SAME BAT CHANNEL
AARDVARK

[Billy Mays]

You should have used a heat sink to displace the heat away from the impeller and made the fix with silver bearing solder.

[AArdvark]

What I would have to do is remove the brass insert out of the plastic part, silver solder the two metal parts together and replace the plastic. That is an extreme last resort as I seriously doubt the plastic can handle a re-pressing of the brass. But stay tuned, I'm fixing it later today!

THE
SCHEDULED TIME
AARDVARK

[AArdvark]

So first we gather our tools. Funny, they are still where I left them a week ago, on top of my toolbox. Move them to the worksite.

(Note the custom ratchet case I made out of a piece of random oak pallet)

[AArdvark]

The hardest part of the whole job is loosening up the leveling screws. They put them behind these brackets and they're a bitch to get at.



Also, disregard any electrical warnings. The job can be done 'hot' no problem.

[AArdvark]

Pull the thing out of it's hole and lay it on it's side. Bring a towel, there's always a little water spillage. There's the problem child, right there!

[AArdvark]

Using a No. 2 poiker stick, depress the rubber mounting pad and remove the stabilizer tab.

Note: I am making up names for these things as I go.