little forgotten kitchenaid portable

[rollermatic]

haven't posted in awhile, here goes!

i have had this kitchenaid portable custom dishwasher since around 2010. i remember driving from milford ohio to columbus to pick it up from some O.S.U. college kid for about 100 bucks i think! hope i didn't pay more!

stuck it in the barn in the back yard and it has set there for 10 years, virtually untouched, unnoticed, unloved! until recently.

brought it in this fall, took pump and motor off, did my usual sump rustproofing with rustoleum primer and paint, put a new pump seal in and now it is my semi-daily machine, tucked in between a maytag, my sink and a g.e. mobile maid.

here's some pics for anyone who likes to look at stuff!

the top is a wood chopping block that someone has varnished or stained whatever in a dark ugly brown, but that's part of it's history so not gonna try to do anything with it! basically an excuse to be lazy!

also, excuse the back wall, in the process of painting the kitchen.

 

[rollermatic]

it only has

2 cycles, full cycle and rinse hold.

no fancy control panel here, just a timer dial and the cycle buttons. no automatic advance but as you kitchenaid fans already know the timer does manually advance all the way thru the cycle to the "off position" when using the rinse hold cycle. just takes it's time, no rapid reset on this one!

everything else is pretty much the same as a suberba model except the top rack doesn't adjust. has the same 1/2 h.p. gold seal motor, pump, spray arm and filter and being a 17 series, no upper spray arm.

 

[appnut]

Peter, glad you got around to tending to her needs. And bringing her back to her glory.

 

[rollermatic]

it does a great job

washing just as any kitchenaid from that era! love the unique sound of a kitchenaid, you can tell it means business inside. not like these machines today that use about 1/2 gallon of water and dribble it around the tub taking about 2 hours to try to get the dishes clean! give me a water guzzling 70's kitchenaid any day!

tub is like new, no chips or rust areas, spray arm and filter in great shape also. detergent cup works fine, no rinse aid dispensor on this one however. this was the budget conscious model for those who could not quite afford the mighty suberba but as hobart always did, they gave it the same quality as their top model!

as you can see in picture 7 there is no constant rinse whirlybird sprayer in the top of the tub either. for the record it is a model kdc-57.

 

[rollermatic]

i'm glad that after who knows how many years of non

use this little custom model now has a new life in my kitchen!

safely resting in one of two dishwasher rows in my kichen. g.e. mobile maid to the right, a 70's maytag harvest gold to the extreme right, and a late model maytag i got out of the garbage last month to the left of my sink. my little tiny frig sits on top of the maytag harvest gold machine. old frig went out and i decided i'd rather have another dishwasher in it's spot!

oh, and look at that neat little 70's popcorn popper on top of the mobile maid i picked up at st vincent de paul last week! guess i'm havin a 70's winter, beats the hell out of this year!

thanks for lookin!!!!!

 

[circlew]

Hey Pete, looks like you can wash lots of dishes in your kitchen!

I keep thinking I'll stop at the Milford St. Vincent de Paul, but seems like I never have time when I go past. Maybe I'll leave early so I can go before my doctor appt. the week after next.

Good to see you on here again.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Wow, this brings back memories. My parents' first dishwasher was the '_?_?_?_?_?_' which was slotted in between this one and the Superba. It had a heavy duty cycle (called something else, IIRC) and an adjustable upper rack, but lacked the water heating feature I wanted but the parental units thought silly.

It did a wonderful job and I loved, loved, loved those adjustable racks. They became a regular feature in my house:

Mom: You'll have to wash such and such by hand. They won't fit into the dishwasher.

Me: Yes, Mom.

(goes and adjusts racks and of course everything fits)

(later)

Mom: How did you get it all into the dishwasher?

Me: Easy, Mom. The racks adjust. Here, let me show you.

And every time I showed her, she acted like it was the first time.........

 

[appnut]

Jim, that sounds just like the interaction with my mom & me regarding the dishwasher.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

They had that dishwasher for ~20 years. That routine with my mother replayed a couple of times weekly while I lived at home and then at least once each visit after I'd moved out.

Funny (sad?) thing was that I was NEVER able convince any bystanders that the conversation they witnessed was not the first time my mother was getting that info. It wasn't until the third or fourth time my friends had witnessed it that they started asking me, "Didn't you and your mom have that conversation the last time I was over?"

At the time I ascribed it to 'general parental weirdness' and didn't think anything of it. It wasn't until decades later that I realized it was part of a pattern, namely that anything that came out of my mouth was a product of my imagination. For reasons I've never figured out the fact that I physically manipulated the tines and fit the 'doesn't fit' item into the dishwasher was apparently irrelevant information. And no, I never did make any sense of it. [this post was last edited: 12/27/2020-01:30]

 

[jamiel]

Wonder if the rinse agent dispenser (which was an option on both the Custom and Imperial, I believe) is still available.

 

[DADoES]

 
The timer can, of course, be manually advanced to Off after Rinse Hold action is finished.

17-Custom didn't have a Constant Rinse sprayer?  Or it just wasn't on the portable frontload model?

 

[cam2s]

What a fun machine to machine to play with. And looks like you have an entire row of fun machines to use! There shouldn’t be any dishwashing challenge that you can’t handle!

 

[rollermatic]

thanks for the comments

appnut good to see you on here, know how much you love dishwashers! and i agree, bring em back to glory! let em rule the kitchen!

circle w- i just bought a later model whirlpool, guess from the 90's or maybe later but it has the 1/3 horsepower motor, vertical shaft, and a pump that actually throws some water around! got it at the milford st vincent! 5 bucks! and it runs great! i keep one late model in my kitchen that i use as my main machine, using the old one's every few times! this whirlpool will replace the maytag i recently got out of the trash when it dies! good to say hello to you!

hi warm second rinse, that would be the imperial model. a few more bells and whistles as we know. i kinda like the custom models cause they are so basic to use! dont have many imperial models. superba was what i aspired to own one day when i was a kid! youd have thought i was lookin at a cadillac! who knew one day i'd have a kitchen full of dishwashers! oh well, they make me happy!

loved your story about your mom and the adjustable racks! i remember when dishwashers were met with overall skepticism by a lot of mothers and housewives back in the day! took awhile for every kitchen to have one or want one! our first one i bought and loaded every night! my aunt never really loaded it at all, i don't even think she could have turned it on! but we all loved it soon enough! g.e. potscrubber from early 70's, i could not afford a kitchenaid on my lawn cutting jobs!

hi jamiel, i find a lot of dishwasher parts on ebay, there has to be some dispensors floating around!

now if i could only find an agitate arm for my 1-18!!! anyone who knows of one, please let me know! would love to get the frig 1-18 going again!

hi dadoes, not sure what models have and dont have that constant rinse. i should know, i have kitchenaids from 12 series on up to 18 models, need to look at em again here soon! i do like working on the machines without it as i like the lower pump base better! as you prob know completely round as opposed to the later pumps that added that constant rinse port of their side.

i'm always afraid to manually turn that control knob, afraid timer will break. i know i'm being overly careful, it's designed to be turned! i'm eccentric!

hello cam2s, started this seriously in 2010 or so, had dabbled in old appliances before that. mainly g.e. and kitchenaids for me, with a few old balls thrown in. have sold a couple, given a few away, have gone years without even looking at them. got back into it this year to take my mind off all the crap goin on outside! if i have to isolate, give me a suberba and a mobile maid and an impeller machine like a g.e. bowtie to play with!

 

[DADoES]

Turning the timer ...

 
I put thin strips of red labelmaker tape on the panel of our KDI-17a to mark the starting point of the 2nd fill (first rinse) and 3rd fill (main wash) for running a "light" and "extra-light" cycle ... turn the timer to the respective points with the handle lifted, close it, press Full Cycle.  Never caused an ill effect.