A detailed look at the Power Clean

[cam2s]

In case anyone wanted to see the inner workings of power clean pump. Being as reliable as they are you don’t seen them disassembled often.

Here is the motor and the base of the pump. The channel at the bottom is the drain channel. You can see the tuned sound absorber. It unscrews to make it easy to install the pump but it’s in here just for looks. You can also see the drain impeller off to the right.

 

[cam2s]

Drain impeller installed.

 

[cam2s]

Drain cover and chopper assembly. The sizing plate for the chopper is attached to the soil separator.

The entrance to the drain impeller is through the soil separator , you can see where the hole in the bottom of the separator chamber will line up with the top of the cover. The other little plastic cover has a check ball in it. The top side opens up to the small breather port on the top of the separator, the other side opens up to a port in the pumping chamber just under the impeller.

 

[cam2s]

The pumping chamber without the wash impeller, the separation trough around it and the soil collection chamber around that. This is a second revision power clean, the first revision was basically the same other than the soil collection chamber itself.

 

[cam2s]

Wash impeller installed.

So what happens here is the water goes into the bottom of the pump, it is pulled up first through the chopper and then into the wash impeller. As the impeller throws the water is goes up the walls of the pump chamber. When it gets to the top it goes over the wall, the soiled water is suppose to fall into the trough and the clean water goes up through the manifold and into the spray arms. The soiled water in the trough enters the soil collection chamber though an opening in the bottom of the trough. The soil is trapped in the by the fine mesh screen and the cleaned water overflows and returns to the sump. When the motor reverses the check ball moves allowing water to be expelled out. There are jets under the wash arm that continuously back wash the fine mesh screen as well.

 

[lakewebsterkid]

Thanks!

Very nice to see it all taken apart. Half way tempted to disassemble mine and see how clean it is for S&Gs.

 

[bradfordwhite]

Nice Job

Excellent photos. I seen several Whirlpool dw pumps from the 70s through 90s but never had to take any apart. I always wondered what that piece was that stuck out.

They must be reliable. Most the problems I've seen on WP dws is the door seal leaking or the racks rusting.

Compare that to D&M built dws from the 70s and 80s where the pump assembly was often messed up with a plethora of potential problems, racks rusted, door seal bad, hard water deposits, rust through on the tub, and rust on panels.