It came with the new house so....

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Good news about the WU404!

I had a look at the rear of the tub and there is a vent port as described; I did a little messing around with the fan and found it had gotten stuck.  During last night's test wash, I felt hot air blowing out through the door vent, so methinks I got pure dumb lucky here!!  A heated dry was the only way to go last night with nearly 90% humidity here... But it seems to work now, so YAY!  

 

I also found a supply valve to the dishwasher (it's all permanently connected copper pipe - THAT's gonna fun when I remove the dishwasher for the installation of new floor tiles...); it wasn't quite open all the way.  I opened it up fully and during last night's run, the detergent opened at least partially in the main wash phase of the cycle.  A little more tinkering will be required, I think.    I will need to pop the front panels at some point soon anyway - I think they'll be undergoing a colour transplant.  Unless I suddenly decide that the '58 Spin Tube needs to be paired up with other Frigidaires... LOL 

 

But so far, to say the machine has been exposed to seriously hard water all its life, it's doing a pretty decent job of cleaning!  I'll continue to observe, though... 
 
Proof - :-)

I believe you, too! I'm kinda surprised it was that late in the 70's, how interesting. My mother's aunt bought a TOL Maytag around 78-79 for their new house "in town" when they retired from the farm (also had a TOL Maytag there) and I remember watching for the burst of steam laden air when the fan would start.
 
Forced-Air Drying In MT RR DWs

Really helped a lot, before they added a blower MT was besieged with complaints about drying performance by customers that had had a KA, a Whirlpool and even a GE DW before they got the MT, [ D&M-KM DWs were also lousy at drying ]

 

MT RR DWs drying problem was the vent in the door was too small and not high enough on the door, so little if any drying took place unless the heater was still on, and what really made matters bad for many users was having the SWB in the top rack, if you didn't remember to pull out the top rack first and unload and remove the SWB all the water in the webbing in the basket would shower the items in the lower rack. MT redesigned the SWB several times trying to minimize this problem.

 

In some ways it was a shame that the MT RR DWs were discontinued , they were one of the last of many unconventional DW designs that were built in the post WW2 period, sometimes you just can't win with a different idea in this world.

 

But for MT it was a great decision to change to a conventional design machine, DW sales nearly doubled in just a few years for MT after they abandoned this unusual and widely hated design [ by most of their customers ].
 
Well, I'm just running the KDS54 for the first time this evening... Let's see if it outwashes the 'Tag.... 
 
"hated" ???

Very odd that such a "hated" dishwasher would be in production for 19 years, ha. Manufactures don't market a design for 19 years unless it is popular.

What is your data point, Combo52, that Maytag Reverse Racks were hated by "most of their customers?" Please share that data source with us.

I think you are the only one who hates the Maytag RR because it is a superior design and overall machine to the pedestrian Whirlpools.

Maytag Reverse Racks were a premium machine like the Hobart KA, with a premium price. Sadly, economics took its toll and Maytag cheapened their machines by getting rid of the fired-on-steel porcelain tubs in '91 and went to a conventional dishwasher with a plastic tub like other manufacturers were doing.

As I have mentioned many times on this site. My families' first dishwasher was a Modern Maid (D&M. It had some issue, but "lousy" drying was not one of them. In fact it more-or-less "baked" the dishes. They came out of they drying cycle quite dry and quite too hot to handle for while.
 
Oh Barry. Maybe I should've said highly disliked , lol

I worked with Maytag for many years and I have far more experience with customers and dishwashers than you will ever have. I have literally talked to hundreds of customers about their experiences with this and many other dishwashers I found very few customers that really liked this machine none were too disappointed when we replaced with a different brand DW either.

 

I attended dozens of Maytag sales meetings and it was a constant selling job to sell and resell this dishwasher to customers because it's unusual design.

 

Maytag could have easily built a reverse rack plastic tub machine and brought the cost down but THEY made the decision to abandon it and sales took off after that the facts are facts the price did not come down that much if at all on MT DWs dishwashers after the change they were still charging premium prices.

[this post was last edited: 8/21/2015-09:17]
 
hundreds of reverse rack customers?

You may have talked to hundreds of customers over the years, but not hundreds of people with reverse racks. Even if you did that is such a small percentage of the total population in the U.S. that has/had ownership of Reverse Racks, that it is a meaningless number statistically. And of course, any information is colored by your personal bias.


Actually, I believe that the RR started in 1969 and the last model year was '89 - 90. So it was closer to 21 years in production. You mentioned all the changes they made while the RR was in production. This is called continual product research and improvement and should be done by manufacturer's...to made a good product even better. As they did with the change of filtration system, addition of the forced air drying, etc.

Notice however, the one thing they didn't change was the reverse rack. So in approximately 20 -21 years they must have gotten much positive feedback from their customers on the racking as that is the ONE thing they didn't change. They didn't until they redesigned and cheapened the total unit to compete with other cheap units on the market.

With good reason. It holds more than most dishwasher and is intuitive to load. The reverse rack was a real coup on the engineers' part. They sweated out even the small details. For example, bowls. It hold more bowls than any machine I have ever had and they can even bowls with food remains such as dried oatmeal can be placed back to back. And the small high velocity jets have enough force to clean them. In my whirlpools, the upper rack cleanability is inconsistent. Often I have to skip a space between bowls to give them a chance to get washed properly. Even then sometimes then don't get clean if the food has been dried on.

In the Maytag RR I don't have to worry about leaving an empty space between bowls. In addition its one of the few dishwashers I have had where the tines for the bowls are tall enough that bowls don't sometimes fall over when pushing or pulling the upper rack in or out. It has dedicated space for ten bowls and there are plenty of saucer rack tines if one has more bowls than that.

One of my favorite features of the RR is the FULL SIZED spray arm over the upper rack. In scours the bottom of the my electric skillet and other pots. They did keep this feature for a while when they went to the cheapened conventional rack system, but you could no longer put deep pots into the upper rack as in the RR system.

I am very sorry you allowed your feelings to get hurt by my positive comments on the reverse rack, Combo52.
 
Ah, you've read my mind...  Stay tuned for a thread all about which washer and dryer is now the go-to team in St-Lib!!   Coming this afternoon with any luck.
 
I bought my Maytag RR new in November '91 from the local dealer when I moved into my house. The RR was great...cleaned everything, top and bottom rack, was very versatile in loading IMO, dried everything well including plastics and the cycles were quick. The only complaint would be the noise compared to today's dishwashers.

Gary
 
Further Torture Testing...

So I did some baking yesterday and that generated some dirty dishes and baked on residues.  What better to test the Maytag WU404 with!  

 

Lets see what happens with that Corningware loaf pan in a 'Pots And Pans' cycle... 

turquoisedude-2015082608332302461_1.jpg

turquoisedude-2015082608332302461_2.jpg

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Some good news - the detergent cup is tripping all by itself again!  I think it may have been stuck with old detergent residue (I extracted the remains of a couple of tabs...) and I somehow think the former owner didn't use this machine all that frequently.   

 

turquoisedude-2015082608365905781_1.jpg
 
Results? Well....

Not great, alas.... Not as bad as the recent Torture Test of the '65 Kenmore Roto-Rack but still a tad disappointing.   I hate to say it, but I think the '70 Mobile Maid would have been better able to cope with this.  I think next time I'll have to try out the KDS54 and see how it does.

 

Fear not, I am not rushing to decommission the 'Tag yet.  It will have to be removed at some point though (I want to install a new floor in the kitchen - that linoleum is kinda awful...).   You can start taking bets on whether it gets re-installed or if a certain '58 turquoise Spin-Tube takes its place.  LOL 

turquoisedude-2015082608404508880_1.jpg
 
Well wait a minute there...what did you use for a detergent? And how hot was your water? I have found with a Maytag JetClean reverse rack dishwasher that they normally can clean anything you throw at them. That said, I had an issue with my WC302 that seemed to be losing wash power and come to find out that the lower arm split at the sides. It lost power in the lower arm and center tower and dishes were not washing well. Once the arm was replaced, the entire wash system was repressurized and it could clean anything I threw at it, and with a good detergent like Cascade.
The other thing is if you sprayed your pans with a nonstick spray before baking, that helps the dishwasher do its job properly too....
 
Neat Dishwasher!

So cool that you have this dishwasher to welcome you into your new home.  These Maytag's are such a neat beast and great cleaners! 

 

Glad to hear that your soap cup is opening up without any new parts needed. 

 

In fairness to your Maytag....these "Corningware" anything from this time period are a beast to clean!  Even if you clean them by hand with a Brillo pad!  I have had this stuff new out of the box and from the first time use of baking NO Dishwasher would have sparkling clean results.  I don't use them very often for just this reason.

 

I think it is too hard of a test.  I can tell you my KDS-18 or 17 would not have cleaned your dish even with it being on the bottom rack.  No way.

 

Glad you guys are enjoying your new home!

 

B

 
 
Mike - I am using Cascade powder at the moment (I figure if it cleans dishes in one of the impeller machines... LOL) and the hot water tank is set a 150.  I also used the 'Sani Wash/Heated Dry' option on the Maytag to help boost the temperature.   But the water here is pretty hard and I think the machine may have mineral build-up.   I'm going to do a little more cleaning of the machine before the next load.  

 

Funny, but I've tried using nonstick cooking sprays in the past and found they made no difference to soil removal in the dishwasher.   Maybe the formulations of the products here in Canada are different, but I found that good old-fashioned greasing and flouring gave me better results (mostly when removing the finished product from the pans).  

 

Brent - I guess I've had the same Corningware experiences you've had!  I found they need a darn good soaking and scrubbing to loosen heavy soils!  That's very likely why my Electromatic skillets are used as 'warmers' more than 'cookers'....

 

I'll do a little more tinkering with the Tag and hopefully we'll have a water treatment system in place soon!

 
 
Well presoaking

the bakeware likely would have improved the outcome. The wash cycle is fairly short compared to current.

Realize this is a vintage discussion, but many new high efficiency machines with long main wash cycles and good enzyme detergents would clean this up without pretreatment.
 
Cleaning Corning Ware In The DW

I use almost nothing but CW in oven cooking, mainly because it is an ideal cook-ware in my micro-thermal ovens. I DO use cooking spray which really helps it come clean. I always put the highly soiled items directly in the DW and am almost never disappointed with the results.

 

Water conditions probably did play a part in the poor cleaning performance here, but the other part is MTs poorly designed cycles on the RR DWs [ there was also never a Hobart KA DW that had well designed cycles for this really tough soil ], The other problem with the MT RR DWs is the lack of water movement and poor distribution patterns, [ you can even see in your test that one side of the dish is much cleaner than the other even though you had it placed in just about the best position possible. When I used to use Jon Cs TOL BD MT RR DW at his house at the cape I often took items out that got missed while everything around it was clean. These DWs just didn't throw the wall of water around that better DWs of the time did.
 
Bread pans are the hardest for most any dishwasher I've used - new or vintage.   Yeast bread, quick breads, etc. all the same when it comes to machine dishwashing.  I should have tried a dried-on loaf pan in the GE 1200 I just put in the kitchen last weekend, but I presoaked the three Pyrex and ceramic loaf pans I used before putting them in.  I'm pretty impressed with the GE so far, but have always liked the cleaning in a Maytag RR d/w.

 

Leslie may well be right about the modern d/w's and longer cycles, we've put some pretty scary stuff in my mom's Bosch and have never been disappointed.

 

 

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RR cleaning

As just about every owner of a RR has stated on this site they are phenomenal cleaners and their longevity in the marketplace speaks volumes of their popularity.
Talk about water circulation!! Wow. Two full sized wash arms and a tower. And according to Bernoulli's equation, force increases with a reduction in diameter or size of the aperture. So Maytag put a fine filter in to allow stinging jets of water to come from the pin-hole type of jets on the wash arms. Many jets were used to give a complete coverage within every part of the machine.

My biggest complaint is plastic-ware being toppled on its side by the force.

If the previous owner had hard water conditions, then there may be calcification of the mesh filter, hidden beneath the pump module cover below the lower wash arm.

A good soaking/scrubbing in CLR or Lime-Away should clean this nicely and give an increase in water flow to the pump.
 
Right, I figured I'd try cleaning that mesh filter on the Maytag sooner rather than later.  

 

Here's what the tub, filter and cover looked like before cleaning. 

turquoisedude-2015082714443607406_1.jpg

turquoisedude-2015082714443607406_2.jpg
 
And after a good soak and scrub (hmmm....sounds like a good name for a dishwasher cycle... LOL) here's what the filter and cover look like.  

 

A bit of an improvement!

turquoisedude-2015082714535509160_1.jpg

turquoisedude-2015082714535509160_2.jpg
 

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