I found this locally (within Connecticut) and it demonstrated a side-benefit of collecting these things: sometimes your travel takes you to interesting and very pretty places, in this case Barkhamstead CT and a small house within a state forest next to a gorgeous river and an even more spectacular reservoir. The seller was selling items from an estate sale and told me this belonged to a LOL. It's easy to believe because this machine has seen very little use. Most likely, she was given this dishwasher in 1963, used it a couple of times and decided, like so many women I have known, that it was just easier to wash the dishes by hand.
It looks like a typical KA top-loading portable from the Sixties and early Seventies, but it has some of the parts of the KD-2's. That pretty blue cast iron wash arm could be used as a murder weapon in an Alfred Hitchcock teleplay. It's also unusual in that the vinyl on the racks is off-white with blue speckling; I don't think that happened in subsequent model years.
I do love my top-loading portables. I promised myself that if this was in working condition I wasn't going to take it apart and render it useless; I ran the machine empty when I got it home and, unfortunately, like my Maytag WP-600, it went through the normal cycle filling itself over and over again without draining, until it overflowed. I don't know if that overflow switch is supposed to shut off the fill solenoid or active the drain solenoid, but it looks like it is most definitely the latter. Anyway, I bailed out most of the water, disconnected the fill and let it continue another whole cycle. While I was in the bedroom suddenly I heard the unmistakable SNAP of a solenoid and then the happy gushing sound of water draining into the sink. I guess the drain solenoid was a little sticky and benefited from some heat, vibration and some time. It works!
It looks like a typical KA top-loading portable from the Sixties and early Seventies, but it has some of the parts of the KD-2's. That pretty blue cast iron wash arm could be used as a murder weapon in an Alfred Hitchcock teleplay. It's also unusual in that the vinyl on the racks is off-white with blue speckling; I don't think that happened in subsequent model years.
I do love my top-loading portables. I promised myself that if this was in working condition I wasn't going to take it apart and render it useless; I ran the machine empty when I got it home and, unfortunately, like my Maytag WP-600, it went through the normal cycle filling itself over and over again without draining, until it overflowed. I don't know if that overflow switch is supposed to shut off the fill solenoid or active the drain solenoid, but it looks like it is most definitely the latter. Anyway, I bailed out most of the water, disconnected the fill and let it continue another whole cycle. While I was in the bedroom suddenly I heard the unmistakable SNAP of a solenoid and then the happy gushing sound of water draining into the sink. I guess the drain solenoid was a little sticky and benefited from some heat, vibration and some time. It works!
