Uh-oh.
Filterless showdown
- Thread starter roto204
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Hope you enabled any and all water heat options.
My mother
had one just like the one on the right but built in...did an excellent job cleaning!
had one just like the one on the right but built in...did an excellent job cleaning!
Skirt-less girls gone wild!
Does the Kenmore have a small arm at the top of the tank? Does this model even have a high-temp option? If neither, I'll bet it's a tie. Lol
Does the Kenmore have a small arm at the top of the tank? Does this model even have a high-temp option? If neither, I'll bet it's a tie. Lol
Wow - my father had the Kenmore on the right in his farm house when he lived in Ontario a few years ago. He loved it - it was able to cope with dishes that were often left for days before he'd have enough for a full load.
Steam VS water... Can't wait to see how this turns out!
Steam VS water... Can't wait to see how this turns out!
*chuckle*
The test labs are gearing up...
Last night was the first test-load of dishes after some open-heart surgery on the little Kenmore.
First, let's meet our new contestant, since you all know and love the Thermador already.
Cycles, "Three-Level Wash" script that photographs poorly since it's written in gold, and the timer.
It's such a pretty machine! Definitely lower-MOL. No water heating options that I can see, but I haven't dug around in the guts to look for thermostats, nor played with the Pots-and-Pans cycle yet to see what it does, other than add water changes.[this post was last edited: 5/21/2015-13:06]
The test labs are gearing up...
Last night was the first test-load of dishes after some open-heart surgery on the little Kenmore.
First, let's meet our new contestant, since you all know and love the Thermador already.
Cycles, "Three-Level Wash" script that photographs poorly since it's written in gold, and the timer.
It's such a pretty machine! Definitely lower-MOL. No water heating options that I can see, but I haven't dug around in the guts to look for thermostats, nor played with the Pots-and-Pans cycle yet to see what it does, other than add water changes.[this post was last edited: 5/21/2015-13:06]
Constant rinse
It does indeed have one. Here's a shot of wash-arms and clearances:
It does indeed have one. Here's a shot of wash-arms and clearances:
Racking
...getting ready on her maiden test load:
...getting ready on her maiden test load:
And, of course...
...the "ON" light. Because you wouldn't know, otherwise.
...the "ON" light. Because you wouldn't know, otherwise.
Surgery
So, let's back up a bit. When she first arrived, she was so very, very pretty cosmetically. But, as you know, sometimes the prettiest faces can hide the deepest issues.
The first clue that something might be going on was a stream of minerals down the side of the motor, and on the underside of the hoses. This is, I've found, never a good sign, and seldom is it the case that those drips and leaks just "heal themselves." Or, as my grandmother used to point out, if the thing ended up in the thrift store, there may well be a reason why.
Application of water confirmed an issue--a plethora of tiny leaks around the tub-to-pump seal.
The old seal was revised later to be wider, although the double-lip that does the sealing is the same between the original and new part. What happened here, though, seems to be common with machines that undergo low use in Arizona--the seal itself shrinks, slightly. Suddenly, the circumference is no longer adequate to get those two tracks of seals to lap the porcelain, and the rest is history.
I've run into this phenomenon on one other machine--a lovely PowerClean that couldn't hold water, but was otherwise perfect. The big, rubber-stopper-like tub-to-pump seal had shrunk, and no amount of dinking around would get it to seal again. The shrinkage was so bad that the pump and motor actually would spin in place. Again, replacing the gasket resolved the issue, so this time I jumped onto PartsDirect and ordered the replacement, for a shocking $4. Yay, parts!
You can also see in the photo where another issue happens with these machines--either rust blossoms up from the tub opening, or tiny, hard particles (like tidbits of broken glass that have been sent through the wash system billions of times, so that they become the D&M equivalent of sea glass) settle in the low spot between the tub seal and the porcelain, and work themselves in. Once they do--and the seal is distorted--you can't get it to seal again without applying silicone. And why do that when a fresh one is just $4 away?
I cleaned out the debris around the pump to make sure the surfaces were smooth, and installed the new seal. On these machines, D&M made a self-locating ring underneath that snaps into two halves, into which the screws anchor from the pump assembly above. This makes working on these units light years easier than the old porthole-sandwich units that had to be disassembled in layers to extricate the pump assembly. If you're handy, you can even pull the guts out through the top. However, they don't provide a quick-disconnect harness on the motor, so doing so would require disconnecting several wires to the motor. Boo. Instead, I shimmed up the pump with cardboard from underneath, and raised it into the air just enough to effect the tub seal replacement. All told, it took about 10 minutes to do.
So, let's back up a bit. When she first arrived, she was so very, very pretty cosmetically. But, as you know, sometimes the prettiest faces can hide the deepest issues.
The first clue that something might be going on was a stream of minerals down the side of the motor, and on the underside of the hoses. This is, I've found, never a good sign, and seldom is it the case that those drips and leaks just "heal themselves." Or, as my grandmother used to point out, if the thing ended up in the thrift store, there may well be a reason why.
Application of water confirmed an issue--a plethora of tiny leaks around the tub-to-pump seal.
The old seal was revised later to be wider, although the double-lip that does the sealing is the same between the original and new part. What happened here, though, seems to be common with machines that undergo low use in Arizona--the seal itself shrinks, slightly. Suddenly, the circumference is no longer adequate to get those two tracks of seals to lap the porcelain, and the rest is history.
I've run into this phenomenon on one other machine--a lovely PowerClean that couldn't hold water, but was otherwise perfect. The big, rubber-stopper-like tub-to-pump seal had shrunk, and no amount of dinking around would get it to seal again. The shrinkage was so bad that the pump and motor actually would spin in place. Again, replacing the gasket resolved the issue, so this time I jumped onto PartsDirect and ordered the replacement, for a shocking $4. Yay, parts!
You can also see in the photo where another issue happens with these machines--either rust blossoms up from the tub opening, or tiny, hard particles (like tidbits of broken glass that have been sent through the wash system billions of times, so that they become the D&M equivalent of sea glass) settle in the low spot between the tub seal and the porcelain, and work themselves in. Once they do--and the seal is distorted--you can't get it to seal again without applying silicone. And why do that when a fresh one is just $4 away?
I cleaned out the debris around the pump to make sure the surfaces were smooth, and installed the new seal. On these machines, D&M made a self-locating ring underneath that snaps into two halves, into which the screws anchor from the pump assembly above. This makes working on these units light years easier than the old porthole-sandwich units that had to be disassembled in layers to extricate the pump assembly. If you're handy, you can even pull the guts out through the top. However, they don't provide a quick-disconnect harness on the motor, so doing so would require disconnecting several wires to the motor. Boo. Instead, I shimmed up the pump with cardboard from underneath, and raised it into the air just enough to effect the tub seal replacement. All told, it took about 10 minutes to do.
And then...
You could tell that this unit had been leaking for a while, and it inspired the owners to try to find and seal everything they could in the quest for a non-incontinent dishwasher. Someone smeared clear silicone around the opening to the drying fan, over the hoses on the pump ports underneath, and installed worm-gear clamps (more on that in a moment). Nice try, but they managed to miss the source of the leak!
The kick panel on this unit is a little tricky to get off, as it is a true portable (frameless), and not a convertible with a skirt. So, they probably had very little to go on in terms of direct visual evidence while the machine was operating.
Initial tests after the tub-to-pump seal replacement looked good. I patted myself on the back for such a slam-dunk repair, and reached for a beer, when suddenly, a rivulet of water exited the port from the pump to the wash-arm column, and went "pit!" on the ground.
Dammit.
Further investigation (aided greatly by the now-mostly-dry environment) showed the causal issue.
The hose from the drain impeller to run the upper wash arms had a tiny split--and moreover, the well-intended owner who had installed the ring clamps had overtightened them.
The overtightening caused a hairline crack in the port, which wept when the tub held water, and created a very slow, very small drip off the side of the motor.
I siliconed the crack after testing just how much it opened up under flexion, and also cut off the bad section of hose.
This was an endeavor in neurosurgery, because the hoses on this machine are SO THIN that they crack instantly, even if you do something innocuous, like pinching them to test their flexibility. I almost split the whole hose after an innocent squeeze at the end, so I had to VERY carefully cut off the bad section, and then pray that the new end wouldn't split in turn when I pushed it onto the pump port.
Mercifully, it held, and that was the end of the leaks.[this post was last edited: 5/21/2015-13:11]
You could tell that this unit had been leaking for a while, and it inspired the owners to try to find and seal everything they could in the quest for a non-incontinent dishwasher. Someone smeared clear silicone around the opening to the drying fan, over the hoses on the pump ports underneath, and installed worm-gear clamps (more on that in a moment). Nice try, but they managed to miss the source of the leak!
The kick panel on this unit is a little tricky to get off, as it is a true portable (frameless), and not a convertible with a skirt. So, they probably had very little to go on in terms of direct visual evidence while the machine was operating.
Initial tests after the tub-to-pump seal replacement looked good. I patted myself on the back for such a slam-dunk repair, and reached for a beer, when suddenly, a rivulet of water exited the port from the pump to the wash-arm column, and went "pit!" on the ground.
Dammit.
Further investigation (aided greatly by the now-mostly-dry environment) showed the causal issue.
The hose from the drain impeller to run the upper wash arms had a tiny split--and moreover, the well-intended owner who had installed the ring clamps had overtightened them.
The overtightening caused a hairline crack in the port, which wept when the tub held water, and created a very slow, very small drip off the side of the motor.
I siliconed the crack after testing just how much it opened up under flexion, and also cut off the bad section of hose.
This was an endeavor in neurosurgery, because the hoses on this machine are SO THIN that they crack instantly, even if you do something innocuous, like pinching them to test their flexibility. I almost split the whole hose after an innocent squeeze at the end, so I had to VERY carefully cut off the bad section, and then pray that the new end wouldn't split in turn when I pushed it onto the pump port.
Mercifully, it held, and that was the end of the leaks.[this post was last edited: 5/21/2015-13:11]
Build quality
The porcelain and racks are beautiful on this machine, probably due to its low mileage.
That said, I always wondered why these machines got such a bad reputation in the field, and I realized after working with this one why, exactly, that was.
There seems to be a continuum of quality in D&M design execution, from the early days when they did bad things like put pot-metal impellers in the pumps, to a fairly decent time during the seventies, toward a miserable demise in the mid-eighties of the metal-tub design.
By this time, you can see the effects of cheapening everywhere. The wires are the thickness of a dry spaghetti noodle. The rack wires are very thin. The wash-arms, although still stainless steel, are incredibly thin and light, and the holes where the jets are pressed through are flared outward; something you don't see as much in earlier models. The pump housing and wash-arm support are thinner too, and inadvertently causing cracks in both is very easy to do, if you overtighten anything. For all the advances in the serviceability, the overall durability really declined.
This machine is, for lack of a better word, fragile.
I told Roger that I love the performance (and the looks) thus far, but would never install one of these undercounter. I can only imagine all the ways it could quietly leak, and you'd never know, until your cabinets and subfloor had turned to oatmeal.
By the way, I did clean it, and reattach the kick panel last night after the test-run. ;-) Not every dishwasher in the house has to be kick-panel-less. [this post was last edited: 5/21/2015-15:05]
The porcelain and racks are beautiful on this machine, probably due to its low mileage.
That said, I always wondered why these machines got such a bad reputation in the field, and I realized after working with this one why, exactly, that was.
There seems to be a continuum of quality in D&M design execution, from the early days when they did bad things like put pot-metal impellers in the pumps, to a fairly decent time during the seventies, toward a miserable demise in the mid-eighties of the metal-tub design.
By this time, you can see the effects of cheapening everywhere. The wires are the thickness of a dry spaghetti noodle. The rack wires are very thin. The wash-arms, although still stainless steel, are incredibly thin and light, and the holes where the jets are pressed through are flared outward; something you don't see as much in earlier models. The pump housing and wash-arm support are thinner too, and inadvertently causing cracks in both is very easy to do, if you overtighten anything. For all the advances in the serviceability, the overall durability really declined.
This machine is, for lack of a better word, fragile.
I told Roger that I love the performance (and the looks) thus far, but would never install one of these undercounter. I can only imagine all the ways it could quietly leak, and you'd never know, until your cabinets and subfloor had turned to oatmeal.
By the way, I did clean it, and reattach the kick panel last night after the test-run. ;-) Not every dishwasher in the house has to be kick-panel-less. [this post was last edited: 5/21/2015-15:05]
Value add
I love the storage cubby, and the unicouple with the shroud that prevents excessive spray, unlike the open design on later models that shower water everywhere unless you place a bowl beneath them.
Hey! There's a new faucet adapter in the Ziploc bag! And it fits, too! Sweet.
I love the storage cubby, and the unicouple with the shroud that prevents excessive spray, unlike the open design on later models that shower water everywhere unless you place a bowl beneath them.
Hey! There's a new faucet adapter in the Ziploc bag! And it fits, too! Sweet.
Ergonomics
Before the era of pod-people, you actually had to pour detergent into cups, and this design illustrates that idea nicely.
The pods will have to go frolic in the pre-wash, and the chlorinated gel will lay in wait until the main.
Notice how, by 1984, they subdivided the prewash cup. For normal wash, fill one. For pots and pans, fill two. Chintzy.
Before the era of pod-people, you actually had to pour detergent into cups, and this design illustrates that idea nicely.
The pods will have to go frolic in the pre-wash, and the chlorinated gel will lay in wait until the main.
Notice how, by 1984, they subdivided the prewash cup. For normal wash, fill one. For pots and pans, fill two. Chintzy.
Two things unique to this machine in D&M design
1.) A non-leaking rinse agent dispenser
2.) A detergent dispenser without a broken cam
(Please forgive the dripping gak from the dish load.)
1.) A non-leaking rinse agent dispenser
2.) A detergent dispenser without a broken cam
(Please forgive the dripping gak from the dish load.)
Results
For a basic test on Normal Wash, great. This machine separates glasses better in the racks, which prevents contact points where trash can accumulate. On the Yibble Particle Redeposition Scale, with the Thermador typically coasting at a Yibble Index of 5, the Kenmore is a 2.5 to a 3, depending on how crazy you get with chucking detritus in the machine.
It doesn't have the capacity of the Thermador due to the broader tine spacing, but another thing you can do in the Kenmore is fit shallow bowls in successive tines, and expect that the water will reach them. You have to skip a row in the Thermador to make that happen.
One thing the Kenmore does not do: Cloud the dishes when used without Lemi-Shine in the main wash cup. The steam delays seem to have a serious downside, and this suggests that we are seeing detergent deposition during stagnant stages that is being stripped away by the acid later in the cycle.
(What looks like schmutz on the GladWare is actually blisters from when food gets reheated in the microwave, and hot spots develop.)
For a basic test on Normal Wash, great. This machine separates glasses better in the racks, which prevents contact points where trash can accumulate. On the Yibble Particle Redeposition Scale, with the Thermador typically coasting at a Yibble Index of 5, the Kenmore is a 2.5 to a 3, depending on how crazy you get with chucking detritus in the machine.
It doesn't have the capacity of the Thermador due to the broader tine spacing, but another thing you can do in the Kenmore is fit shallow bowls in successive tines, and expect that the water will reach them. You have to skip a row in the Thermador to make that happen.
One thing the Kenmore does not do: Cloud the dishes when used without Lemi-Shine in the main wash cup. The steam delays seem to have a serious downside, and this suggests that we are seeing detergent deposition during stagnant stages that is being stripped away by the acid later in the cycle.
(What looks like schmutz on the GladWare is actually blisters from when food gets reheated in the microwave, and hot spots develop.)
Nate
While there's always a high level of anticipation whenever you post one of your reports, for me it was superseded by the sense of delight after spying components from an automatic drip coffee maker in the top rack.
Yippee! I hope you're hooked!
While there's always a high level of anticipation whenever you post one of your reports, for me it was superseded by the sense of delight after spying components from an automatic drip coffee maker in the top rack.
Yippee! I hope you're hooked!
LOL!
I knew the instant I posted it that you'd spot the filter assembly. Hooked? I can't imagine life without it! It makes such wonderful coffee, and it's so FAST! I use it every morning.
The smoothness is amazing. And I've been good, and have only used wooden spoons so as not to whack the carafe! :-D
I knew the instant I posted it that you'd spot the filter assembly. Hooked? I can't imagine life without it! It makes such wonderful coffee, and it's so FAST! I use it every morning.
The smoothness is amazing. And I've been good, and have only used wooden spoons so as not to whack the carafe! :-D
Norelco Auto Drip
<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">That looks an awful lot like the basket from an old Norelco Drip coffeemaker I used to have.</span>
<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">I had this machine in a rental condo in Chicago for a short time. I don't remember it much either way so I guess it did OK. I do remember the dial and the buttons though.</span>
<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">That looks an awful lot like the basket from an old Norelco Drip coffeemaker I used to have.</span>
<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">I had this machine in a rental condo in Chicago for a short time. I don't remember it much either way so I guess it did OK. I do remember the dial and the buttons though.</span>
