Jackie Dempere is adorable!! Very intelligent lady; we talked about Venezuelan and American politics (she knows more about American politics than I do) while her dog, Cuca explored the property and then somehow knew when she was ready to go and popped back up into the cab of a huge truck her mistress was driving.

Anyway, here they are: #1 an SP-40R (1958) courtesy of Gansky who must have spent hours detailing this beautiful little machine (either that or no one has ever used this thing):

Interior is mint:

and, best of all, I have finally and old-style "fudgy-the-whale" style magnetic detergent dispenser which is so brilliantly designed, I can't understand why they changed it. There must have been some service problem that GE grew tired of:

Even the faucet adapter, both hoses and the power cord are coral-pink! And, unlike my other Mobile Maid, of similar vintage, the rubber on all of these is still pliable and not flaking away in big chunks. Somebody will have to explain this all to me someday. After I test it, I think this machine is going into the museum. It's just too pretty to mess with.

Did I mention that it has one of those fabulous red and blue control dials?

The younger maid, Thank You Doug!!!!, wasn't in such great condition, but all she needed is my favorite chore, a deep Vera Donovan cleaning. This one is from 1965 and it's an SM301A and I've already bonded with this dirty little machine:

Underneath all the grime, the racks are in remarkably good condition:

It has the Rinse-Glo dispenser that you have to "cock" before each load. Maybe one of you can explain this to me, there's only a fill spigot, where and how does this empty out into the tub?

I filled the tank with about 1 gallon of boiling water; after 30 minutes the level remains the same, so no leaks in the sump which has some rust and some yick around the wash arm/pump base:

I will agree with Consumer's Reports here: the hoses are ridiculously short. Thankfully, the power cord is long enough to allow the machine to be moved as close to the kitchen sink as possible.

Spoke too soon; there is a leak that has occurred as soon as the cycle started. It's pretty certain it's not in the sump. I'll have to remove the front panel and see if it's the inlet hose, the solenoid, or some other reason. Quarts of water have leaked out and the machine sounds like it's still washing so I'm thinking that it's coming from some branch of the water inlet.

 I don't know why they ever thought the Silver Shower was necessary; the wash spray is powerful enough to bounce the empty silverware basket all over the bottom rack. More later when I have her cleaned up.

Thank you Hans. That's VAT kitchen tile circa 1956 and I put a hell of a lot of work into this floor which is disintegrating as we write and read. It was under two layers of hideous vinyl which, fortunately, came up together. Many pieces are missing and I've replaced a few with red VAT tiles that I found at a salvage store 8 years ago, but unfortunately, every time a dishwasher leaks or some other catastrophe leaves water on the floor, more tiles bubble up and disintegrate and this floor is not long for the world. I'm hoping I can find some  sort of "retro" replacement, but Plan A is to move the kitchen to the ground floor so I'm not going to waste a lot of time on this right now.

Back to the 1965 Mobile Maid:

After scrubbing with bathroom scale remover and then a hot bath with Lime-Away, she cleaned up pretty well, I think:

There are very few blisters on either the tank or the racks, so just a tiny bit of patching will be needed. The next goal is to find the leak, which is fortunately definitely NOT from the bottom of the tank which held a pool of water overnight. The fill hose wasn't attached very tightly to the solenoid; wouldn't that be great if that was the problem?

The other issue is the unusual Rinse-Glo dispenser which I'm going to have to research. It has only one hole inside the unit which is where it's filled from. Looking at the contraption from the front, it seems that it has a plunger at the bottom of a plastic cylinder, sorta like a Maytag Bleach dispenser, only you have to set the plunger, and when the cycle dial comes around to the final rinse, it trips the plunger rod which must, in some way, pump a dose of rinse-aid into the tank. It looks like there is/was a clear plastic tube that feeds into the top of the Rinse-Glo fill trough. There must be hole on the top of that valve that allow the rinse-aid to piddle out under the cap and get sloshed into the final rinse water? My question is: has this tube been cut, or is it supposed to be that way to act as a vacuum break? There's a tiny spout at the bottom of the main cylinder that would seem to be the outlet feed for the dispenser? Any of you experts have any experience with one of these? All opinions welcome.

And, I'm happy to report that after almost 50 years, the Electrical Schematic sheet is still intact and attached to the inside of the front panel and the timer is clearly identified:

Congratulations on your "new" old Mobile Maid!  Looks to be in EXCELLENT condition.  And, as has already been discussed above, I love, love, love the floor.  Please let us know if you ever find a suitable replacement.

lawrence

Ken,  I have a service manual for a JCP version of these machines and it doesn't show the hose, only a frontal shot of the dispenser and trip assembly.  Unfortunately, I don't have parts diagrams for the top-load models that would be more helpful.  Based on the description, it would seem there would be a connection from the rinse agent tank to the tub somehow.  Do you have the cap that goes on the threaded port inside the tub?   If that is missing, perhaps your water leak is coming from the dispenser unit not being connected properly.

 We played with the Maid at New Years at Gregs house it brought back memories let me tell you!

Dontcha just LOVE Jackie?? She is a DREAM!! MotherSuperior gave me her number and she delivered a MINT 1960 GE FF from Greg's.

Thanks to everyone, I'm going to have fun with these machines.

Greg, a big thank you for that scan/post; I have similar ones from Hotpoint and in both cases they give a good explanation of how the dispenser works, but no explanation of the plastic tube that is so conspicuously sticking out from the one I just opened up.

Fortunately, at the last minute, before I weakened and took electric screwdriver to vintage appliance and ran out to buy plastic tubing from my favorite local hardware store, I remembered a GE dishwasher service manual that came in the mail recently that I opened but didn't take time to look at:

For some reason, they introduced this mechanical, not solenoid-operated, piston/pump style dispenser in 1964 where, as you all know, you had to press a button or turn a dial to "cock" the mechanism. This style of dispenser was also used on their front-loader models for a while but there must have been service problems that are hinted at on the next page:

Voila! (sorta)

So at last I get an illustration (figure 28) with yet another infuriating portion of said tube. From the cryptic text I am persuaded to understand that the tube has nothing to do with the injection of the Rinse-Aid, the tube seems to have been part of a "gauge" to let SOMEBODY know where the level of liquid was at and, according to the explanation was filled with a little bit of red liquid to mark the level. Interesting, because when I first got the machine, the second thing I did was to open the cap on the dispenser spout inside to see if it had that little metal dipstick going down its throat just like our pull-out had, which told the user when it was time to add more product. No dipstick (I think one of the more irritating things with dishwasher rinse dispensers is trying to figure out how much stuff is or isn't in there; the dipstick was the best, easiest and simplest solution IMO).

I think I got my best and most satisfactory answer to this trivial puzzle from figure 27 where somebody at GE had the smarts to make and publish a cross-section of the part:

Will do!

So, what seems to happen is that the Rinse Agent in the cylindrical main reservoir and the dispensing tube to the right of the piston (with lighter blue liquid) which is inside the dispenser and not visible, maintain their level until the piston is plunged into the bottom of the well which forces a dose of liquid up through the little tube and over to a hole directly underneath the fill-spout and cap and not visible to the user where it is washed out and into the dishwasher by the final rinse spray. Makes sense. Also might mean there's nothing wrong with my dispenser, I was just thrown and confused by that *%^$($** cut tube that I discovered when I took the front panel off the unit.

My latest theory is that the tube and the little dead-end spout at the bottom of the dispenser were vestigial parts of a gauge indicator system that is/was featured on TOL models but not on Front-loaders or lesser top loaders. I remembered a cut sheet that I had scanned a while back that pictured almost the same model but from one year earlier and one model up from mine that had a red "INDICATOR" above the control dial. I thought this was a pilot light to let the user know when the machine was on, but now I'm thinking that is was a visible portion of that clear plastic tube with red fluid to let the user know how much rinse agent was left in the dispenser. Seems to work, but I have no hard data, yet, to conclude this. On my model, I guess they just left the extra part off of the machine and let the tube hang, disconnected. Because of the problems servicing this gizmo as indicated in the literature, they discontinued this feature very quickly. I have only seen it on this particular model from 1964. So much more complicated than a humble dip-stick.

As Clouseau would say, "The Case is Solv-ed"

Wow, what a complicated system for rinse agent dispensing.  I'm surprised there isn't a motor and belt.  I'm glad you had the service information at hand, it's fascinating to see how they did all of this - non-electrically.

Except in really hard water areas, I would bet most housewives ignored the rinse-agent issue entirely, as did me sainted Mother. I remember, clearly, filling the Rinse-Agent dispenser on our GE Pull-Out the time she first used it with the little glass bottle that came with the machine, seeing the dipstick and having that explained to me, and then, never again.

NYC had soft water (actually, it's the best municipal water in the country; piped 90 miles in from the Ashokan Reservoir) and if there had been a spot on her everyday glasses, she wouldn't have been bothered with it. She hand washed and dried all the good stuff. For me, it's another nifty little gimcrack that needs to be figured out and played with. Local water here in CT is also soft and I can't tell the difference when the rinse dispenser runs dry; that's one reason I think gauges and dipsticks are useful. Also, I will never buy Rinse Agent that ISN'T dyed a bright color again--you need to be able to see it.

I think it's pretty comical how Madison Avenue still makes a fuss over spots on glasses; as if anybody but the Royals and Hyacinth really cared.