Maytag WU-1000 Belt tension/Vintage Appliance Report

[tombombadom]

Hello all!

I am happy to report that after more than 6 months after purchasing my house, my vintage appliances have held up very well! Nothing major has broken or failed in spite of their 20-25 year slumber. Just a belt on the dishwasher (why I'm here today) and a belt on the dryer have been it.

My question today comes about a worsening problem with my dishwasher, a Maytag WU-1000. I have been very happy with this dishwashers performance and couldn't imagine not having it! I don't have to pre rinse anything, I am thoroughly impressed with this dishwashers power to clean everything!

My question is, when it goes into reverse to drain I have been getting some belt squeal, the belt looks pretty loose to me. Is there a way to set or reset the tension of the belt? Could it be my ebay belt is already worn out? I did not make any adjustment when I installed it, and the belt was plenty tight when installed back in March.

The belt and pulleys appear to be free of grease and grime, and I 'm also happy to report no leaks were observed when I pulled the cover off to observe operation to see whats going on.

I will/pry should have another belt in reserve just in case, but was wondering what your opinion was, is it possible to still get a Maytag OE belt? Thank you all for reading!

 

[qsd-dan]

Doubt it's the belt, it's probably the pump. My direct drive RR occasionally squealed during the draining process for many years.

 

[coldspot66]

Sounds like the belt. Not sure if a genuine Maytag belt is still available. If so, replace it with an oem belt. A new genuine belt does come with a bit of silicone grease to quiet the squeal.

 

[combo52]

Indeed Grease the belt with Silicone grease, The MT service rep told us to put more on if it squeaks and take some off if it slips too much.

 

It was always a HSed way to build a DW, they should have used a Poly-Vee belt with an idler tensioner pulley, but MT was already at quite a cost disadvantage building a DW where the pump assembly had to have separate bearings and shaft because they could not use the motor bearings and shaft like every other DW built at the time, As soon as Emersion Electric could build a shorter motor MT immediately abandoned this expensive troublesome noisy design and continued building the RR DW till they figured out that they never were going to get a chance of having a decent share of the US DW market and redesigned the entire machine.

 

If such a DW was built today they would use a Stretch Poly Vee belt. 

 

I have though about converting one of these DWs to a regular V belt with a tension pulley but I have never liked the limited load capacity of RR MT DWs so I will probably never brother unless the one we have in the museum gives us too many belt problems.

 

John L.

 

[tombombadom]

Ok, so thats what the grease was for. Now it makes sense. The belt I got came with grease, but I didn't think it was for the belt. I come from the automotive and machinist world where grease and stuff on belts is bad, so it seemed counter intuitive to me to put grease on a belt. I will see if I can find that thing of grease and put some on.

Other than that the machine has been fantastic! It takes me a week to fill it up (I live by myself) and sometimes even then it's still not full but needs to be ran. I will order another belt because id like to have another one on hand anyways. Thank you all for the responses.