Thread Number: 73106  /  Tag: Vintage Dishwashers
KUDS230B0 - Lessons Learned
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Post# 965656   11/2/2017 at 18:27 (2,338 days old) by barcoboy (Canada)        

barcoboy's profile picture
A few weeks ago, I opened the door of my KitchenAid KUDS230B0 after the cycle was done, only to be surprised that although the bottom rack was clean, the top rack of dishes hadn't been properly cleaned, and there were significant food gibbles on some of the bowls. I ran a Rinse and Hold to see if it would clear the gibbles, but afterwards, they were still there. Running one more Rinse and Hold, and it looked like the top rack dishes weren't even getting wet. Not good.

So the first thing I think of is a pump problem, and decided that since I had most of a rebuild kit (#8193524) from a previous Power Clean dishwasher, and I hadn't replaced the main pump seal yet since acquiring the dishwasher a month or two ago, it was a good time to do a rebuild, and wouldn't cost me anything. Taking off the pump cover, I was surprised to see that the wash impeller looked to be in good condition, and after unbolting it, it came out quite easily. Removing the soil separator and everything looked fine with the chopper blade and spring, and the drain impeller looked fine as well, and also lifted right off the motor shaft without any difficulty. The seal was a bit compressed I thought, but although it wasn't leaking, I decided to change it anyways. Now the reason I had this other rebuild kit was that the last rebuild I ended up having to buy two kits, because the company I dealt with gave me the wrong kit the first time and wouldn't let me return it, even after I noticed that something didn't look right when they handed it to me, but they insisted it was right. So I ended up using most of the first kit, but needed the drain impeller out of the second kit to complete the rebuild. So what was left of #8193524 had everything I needed to do another rebuild, minus the drain impeller, but since the existing impeller of this dishwasher looked fine, I decided to re-use it. So in went the new seal, old drain impeller, new chopper blade and spring, soil separator, and new wash impeller, along with new seals. I left the pump cover off and decided to pour some hot water in the tub to check for leaks. Didn't see anything at first, but after I came back some time later, there was water all over the floor! Water was dripping from the pump seal... damn.

So I stuck a towel under the dishwasher and decided to give it a couple of days to let everything dry out properly, as I didn't want to continue and risk burning out the motor. In the meantime, I did some searching here, and read that some people were having poor wash performance because of a bad check valve. Even though I hadn't heard any gurgling in the drain line like others who had a bad check valve heard, I decided to unscrew it from the pump and examine it... it was fine.

BUT... sometime in the middle of all of this, I just happened to take a glance up at the top rack, and noticed the rubber hose feeding the spray arm was brittle and split in several places. There's my problem I said to myself-no wonder very little water was getting to the top rack. I removed it chunk by chunk from the top rack, and ordered a new one, which arrived in a couple of days.

Now to fix my leak. I disassembled the pump again, and when I got down to the drain impeller, the top of it where the wash impeller screw threads into it was split, so water was leaking through the split, down between the impeller and motor shaft, and through the center of the pump seal. When I lifted it off the motor shaft, the top broke off of it. So I picked up another rebuild kit, this time part #675806, and did another rebuild, using everything in the kit. After fully re-assembling, I started a cycle, and after the dishwasher filled a bit and I couldn't see any drips, I hit the Cancel button, getting a splash of water off the top of the motor slinger in the process once the motor started! But after wiping that up, and running a Rinse and Hold, there were no further water leaks. Problems solved.

So the lessons to be learned are:

- When you do a pump rebuild, DON'T re-use any of the old parts. Replace everything with all the parts that come with the kit.

- Don't over tighten the wash impeller bolt. This might have been part of the reason the drain impeller split, either that or it was brittle.

- DON'T ASSUME THE WORST... DIAGNOSE THE EASY POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS FIRST BEFORE TRYING TO FIX SOMETHING MORE COMPLICATED! If I would have noticed the upper spray arm hose was bad before I pulled the pump all apart, it would have been a much simpler repair. I probably would have rebuilt the pump at some point anyways just to change the seal.

Hope this helps somebody some day.



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