newly acquired KDS-16 with soak

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varicyclevoice

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 13, 2006
Messages
241
Location
Davenport, Iowa
I happened to do a "drive by" as I do often past an appliance store in Davenport and found this machine! It is in very nice condition for its age. The date stamp on the side says March 3, 1971. The racks are surprisingly near perfect.

I have not run it yet but will soon. I found several pieces of broken glass in the sump area. I also found a drinking glass in the top rack. This isn't the first time that I've found glassware. Why don't people empty out their machine before discarding it????

Anyway, I was reading my manuals last night and it says this model starts with a 10 minute soak period. That is much better than the "heavy soil" button that I have on my KDS-36 model which fills and drains within 2 minutes - washing away any detergent put in the open compartment of the dispenser.

I would like to scrub the interior of this tub...it needs a thorough cleaning. Is Soft Scrub safe to use on it? I want something that will clean well but not scratch the porcelain.

Enjoy the pics....

Todd

varicyclevoice++7-25-2009-16-01-3.jpg
 
How many KA's does that make for you now?

I have 16 KitchenAid dishwashers now....I couldn't pass this one by. If I ever move from this house and put them in the driveway for the moving truck...the neighbors are going to think I've lost my mind!! LOL!!!!
 
wht a beauty!

love those 16's as we have discussed before. and a superba! wow didn't know you had that many kitchenaids, you and i have about the same amount! yea, if someone ever came in my house they would think i was nuts too, oh well.

good luck with it, and i have used soft scrub before.
 
Looks Great!

Nice find, Todd. It's very much on the same order as my 1973 KDS-17 also with a wood grain front.

16 and counting! Pretty soon that basement is going to be wall-to-wall dishwashers.

I've been using Bar Keepers Friend for all of my porcelain tub clean up jobs, plus it's good for removing surface rust.

Mike
 
does this dishwasher don't have the middle wash arm??

do u think that a dishwasher without a middle wash arm can clean the dishes in the top rack??

i think that it limit the capacity of the machine, couse u can't put a pan in the lower rack and a cup right over in the top rack, u must intercalate the dishs in the racks.....

i have a portable brazilian dishwasher with onle a lower wash arm and it many times do a poorly job in the cups and bowls in the top rack...

brasilianguy++7-25-2009-20-15-22.jpg
 
last one!!
The programs are:
*Pots and Pans: 2 washes, 3 intermediates rinses, last rinse with rinse aid.
*Normal: 2 washes, 2 interm rinses, laste rinse with rinse aid
*Eco: 1 wash, 2 interm rinses, last rinse w/ RA
*Delicate: 2 washes, 2 interm rinses, laste rinse with rinse aid (the diference is that the temp. is lower and the machine heats the wather b4 the wash action begins to not have a rude change of temp among the fills and drains)
*Rinse and Hold: just 1 cold rinse
*Sanitize: just a hot rinse with rinse aid for new dishes.

brasilianguy++7-25-2009-20-27-46.jpg
 
i love the kitchenaids without the upper spray arm!

in fact the kd-18 was the first to use a second upper spray arm and i greatly prefer the older models myself. the 17, 16, 15, and 12 models i have all do a great job with only one spray arm. of all of them i think my kd-5 top loader has the best cleaning action, followed by my kdss-17a that i use as my main machine!

some will disagree with me and that's ok, but i never have anything come out dirty! and i load it however i want to! i have always liked kitchenaid's ability to clean a load of dishes with only one spray arm, it says something about the quality of the machine! i was sorry to see the design change with the 18 models, but i guess they had to do it to stay competitive since everyone else was using upper spray arms and power towers and all that! oh well, that's history now!

today we have machines that are so weak they can only clean one rack at a time! and not a good job of it, i know i have one, it's awful! i keep it on the front porch cause i don't feel it's good enough to deserve a place in the house with the "real" dishwashers, namely my kitchenaids!
 
One arm or two?

Brasilianguy,

As you probably know from these posts, there are many of us who are really and truly loyal and die hard fans of the original Kitchenaid machines which featured the "Big Blue Washarm" or the Single level "4 Way Hydrosweep" arm which were all they had in the bottom of the machines at the time. And even if you look back on some of the other manufacturers, they also had only one arm that would pump incredible amounts of water at high velocity all around the insides of the wash tanks.
These old units were all probably Hurricanes in boxes as they are often referred to
Our first dishwasher was a KDS-15 which is similar to the jewel pictures above and is also similar to the other venerable classic, the 17 series Kitchenaid. That is, a single washarm located in the bottom fed by a 1/2hp pump. It took just a few loads of dishes for us to figure out that you could not block the top rack by putting bowls and pans on the bottom. Anything above it was in its shadow, so to speak, and not too much water would get up underneath the dishwares in the top rack.

Now that is not to say the no water got up there!
If anyone here runs one of those machines outside of a cabinet and places his or her hand on the top of the tank while the pump is running, they will be able to feel just how hard the water is pounding the top of the tank. If you left a clear shot to the top for the water to pass,the stuff on top didn't stand a chance of not getting clean. I can tell you that there were many times that we loaded up the 15 with a Bob Load in the bottom and the cups and glasses in the top rack would still get turned over!
It really is all about loading it properly.
Now in your pictures, you have the same problem but you seem to know that you should load it differently for better results, but if the pump in your machine is not that strong to begin with, those dishes on top have a poor chance of getting clean.
You didn't show what the wash arm looks like or how big the nozzles on it are so it is hard to determine how effective it would be but I would venture to guess they are not as large as and the pump doesn't compare to what the KitchenAids you see above have going for them or even the size of the jets on some of the older domestic machines like the GE's, Frigidiares(by GM)WasteKing(thermador)and even the D&M machines. Send some pics of it if you can. It would be interesting to compare.
No matter how you twist and turn, the dishes need to see the water and chemicals to come out clean.
 
Stevet, you're completely right!! the wash arm of my dishwasher has small nozzles and not strong wather comes from them, and the pump is very small, like the pump of a compact Haier i think..... nothing compared to a 1/2 horsepower motor!!!
i'll take some pics of it's inside and show!!!
 
But a question for you

If you load your machine carefully with access for the water to reach the top rack, does the machine get the dishes clean? With many of today's machines stateside,they all have longer cycle times for the most part and most make sure the water is hot enough to effectively clean the dishes even with the small nozzles. But of course the second arm does help!
 
the glasses in te sides usually get clean... the problem are the cups in the middle, they usually don't.

The machine heats the wather up to 60ºC (140ºF), and have an avarege main wash time of about 30 min (plus rinses) with a 16 min pre wash in the pots and pans and 8 min in the normal cycle, both with the heater on. no pre in the eco cycle
 

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