Need a part for Vintage Kitchenaid KD-12P

[marionpasadena]

Hi - I finally found a plumber who would look at my vintage dishwasher that is leaking. He took it apart and took a photo from underneath and said I need something like a drain valve kit. Please see photos - he found a "modern" one as an example. Anyone know exactly what part I need and where I could look for it? Thank you for any help or ideas or referrals. I really want to get this working.... My condo was built in 1960 and my kitchen still has my old Tappan Fabulous 400 and this dishwasher so I am trying to restore it.

 

[stevet]

Drain Valve Quandry

What actually happened to your current drain valve? What exactly was leaking. More pictures would help us to help you.
Just remember, all those parts are 99.9% unavailable. Even for the commercial versions, which were no longer made after 1979, Hobart stopped stocking them after 1994. Whatever was left in their stock just got depleted or thrown away.

I was able to buy one of the last 3 remaining drain valves that wlould have fit your machine for one of our now departed members and then that was it. No more to be had brand new. And the price of it was more than half what the machine cost when it was new!

 

[marionpasadena]

HI - I don't know what happened to it. This is a replacement dishwasher for an old one I had previously. So sounds like very hard if not impossible to find then? What would I ask for or search for if I want to try to find one?

 

[stevet]

how many machines do you have?

Maybe you can make one good one out of two of them. Fill us in with some more details.

 

[marionpasadena]

I only have this one dishwasher ---
What is happening is, the water isn't draining and is collecting in the bottom of the dishwasher - and then spilling out through the bottom part of the dishwasher....

 

[hobarthero]

Can valve be rebuilt?

Is it possible to service the old drain valve? Perhaps lubricate the valve to get it working again? I’m not entirely sure what the failure point is, but it is possible perhaps to see about repairing the existing valve you have? I’ve never worked on a Kitchenaid this old so I am guessing a little bit as to options. But I’ve repaired some “non serviceable” parts in the past, patients and perseverance is key. Don’t give up on the old girl just yet.
-Shannon

 

[marionpasadena]

The part is missing. See photo showing where it should be.

 

[hobarthero]

Retrofit a new part?

Sometimes I am able to retrofit new parts onto older machines. Some knowledge of wiring and reading schematics is usually required for this. Perhaps that can be done here as well. It won’t be original but if it works that’s all that really matters.
-Shannon

 

[Unimatic1140]

So the part is missing completely, I thought maybe the plumber you had come in had taken the machine's front panel off and removed the drain value?

If that is the case the best solution is going to be finding another KD-12 or KD-14 dishwasher and take the best parts of both machines to make one good machine.

The part you show from eBay in picture #3 of your first post is from a later KitchenAid dishwasher. The problem is in the early KA dishwashers the drain valve is energized to close off the drain hole during fill and wash/rinse and de-energized to open the hole for drain. The later one's are reversed, they are energized during drain to open up the drain hole during drain and de-energized for fill and wash/rinse. While you could use the newer valve however you'd have to add a reversing electrical relay to it to simulate the original part. Not only that you'd have to find and retro-fit some plumbing to connect it to the pump. This could be done but will take some skill of both plumbing and electricity to get this done.