Old GE dishwasher

[exnerized]

Greetings all,

I recently bought a home built in 1948. One of its most curious features is an in-counter dishwasher that appears by all signs to be original to the house. Based on what the previous owner told me, it most likely stopped working at some point in the early '60s. I'm pretty interested in getting this thing to run!

The racks, impeller, drain valve, and what I assume to be an ornamental cover for an air gap are all in nice shape. There's no small amount of corrosion on the mechanism but all springs, cotter pins, etc. are there and intact from what I can tell. When turned on, the switch actuates a small lever that the cables are connected to with a "click," and there is a visible spark illustrated below, along with a buzzing noise somewhat louder than the hum I would usually associate with an old stuck motor. Neither the impeller shaft nor the cam on the front ever move. I'm reluctant to start tearing further into it without more and better information than I have now, which is to say none. Some questions I have for anyone who might know:

- is there a good way the motor can be turned by hand?
- is there a start cap on this thing somewhere that could have gone?
- anyone ever found a service manual or wiring diagram for one of these? The googles, they say nothing...

Pictures below!

 

[exnerized]

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It is what it says...

 

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Pieces parts...

 

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Look out below...

 

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Guts...

 

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Zap! BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

 

[tomturbomatic]

Congratulations on your new home and this treasure

I hate to dash cold water on this, but do you see the chips on the impeller? Even a small amount of damage to the impeller will greatly impair the washing action of the machine, so you will need a new impeller. The timer on this machine is operated by a gear on the main motor so if the main motor won't operate nothing else will, either. We have people here who have restored this model so they will be able to advise you. I had experience with one of these and can tell you that unless you are willing to rinse almost every particle of food from what you put in, it will most likely not leave through the drain strainer. The cycle is very short. It most likely does date from the late 40s because it does not have a Calrod heater in the sump. The heaters started being installed in the early 50s. I can understand your wanting to preserve a nice looking piece of equipment like this dishwasher, but I want to prepare you for results that might not be what you are hoping for.

 

[yogitunes]

my brother had this whole setup in an apt once, stove/oven and fridge all built into the stainless cabinet and top......a unique set.....his was manually operated, and he used regular dish soap in it....it had no problem getting rid of food on the dishes or inside the machine...

I think its worth trying to get it going.....a rare piece.....keep us posted, and show us the rest of the kitchen....

 

[toploader55]

Definately a ...

Consultation for Mike (dishwashercrazy)

And yes, Congrats on your home and that beautiful machine.

 

[yogitunes]

this should be a model close to the one you have....interesting machine

video courtesy of Dishwashercrazy/Mike......he's your man to ask for info on these..

 

[whirlcool]

With all that water action going on in there I can't imagine how things could not come out clean in there. Couldn't a filter be fitted with a larger mesh on it to aid in getting rid of bits of food?

I imagine if one of these were installed in a house in the deep south you'd have tons of roaches living inside that cabinet.

 

[rinso]

If impeller dishwashers had some sort of recirculating food particle filter/trap, I have often wondered if they would have been more effective.

 

[newvista58]

Great Unit. Good Luck with it and the House.
I'd love to find one of these myself.

Thanks for the Video Yogitunes. It was
very cool to watch it in action.

 

[dishwashercrazy]

Dan,

Please email me at [email protected] to make an initial contact then we can talk by phone about your GE Dishwasher. I have about 20 GE dishwashers in my collection.

Mike

 

[tomturbomatic]

The thing about the GE dishwasher was that the motor had to run all of the time to run the timer so the impeller ran all of the time. There was no pause to let food soil settle out to go down the drain. When the drain valve opened, the impeller kept flinging the water and any particles that were in it. That, coupled with the short cycle, meant that you could not load dishes with food that would dry onto them because the wash was not long enough to remove dried on food and if it did, there was the real possibility that it would be redeposited. I know we love old appliances and, at first glance, they look like they should work as well as a modern one, but there are factors that affect the performance that you don't see just by looking into one. Early machines that do not have a couple of water changes to heat up the dishes before the wash wind up washing in quite cool water. The first fill, even with a purge, loses about 30 degrees heating up room temperature dishes. Robert commented on this with his Youngstown which filled with 180F water which is quite a bit hotter than most domestic hot water supplies. This is OK, if there is another wash and is actually beneficial for loosening protein and starch soils, but not so good if it is the only wash. There is a Consumer's Research dishwasher test where they measured the temperature of the wash water as it drained and most with just one wash had temperatures that were much lower than the 140F temperature of the incoming water. For a couple of years I used a Westinghouse roll out, the last model made before the whole line became drop door wash arm machines. It used an impeller and had a separate drain pump. The wash action would stop and the little pump would start up to drain the water. It allowed the soil particles to settle out and most things got clean. At the time, I used 9 cup Pyrex percolators, just the decanter part, to make my iced tea. I noticed, after a while, that little fibers of food were lodging between the handle band and the body. It was not a serious complaint, but something that did not happen with the KitchenAids. CU talked about food getting trapped between plates and tub walls with early dishwashers if dishes were not prerinsed. Good, modern detergents with chlorine help to break down food and the bonds it forms to dishes as it dries on them, but the short cycles of old machines did not give the performance to which we are accustomed with good, modern dishwashers. I'm not saying that they are not fun to play with, just that they have limitations which you will discover like when you try to load the parts of the food processor or try to clean cookware that you have not soaked or pretreated in some way, especially if you cooked a starch in it.

 

[yogitunes]

just one of those things, as with any machine out there, you have to adapt to the pros and cons of the machines functions to get the best results....

the WHOLE idea of a dishwasher/sink is to pre-rinse the dishes for the disposer to handle the bulk, and the dishwasher to deal with the rest...

if anyone can give you an honest opinion of their cleaning it's Mike.....

even in this video of ApplianceLou's Kaiser shows a load of dishes being cleaned thoroughly with nothing left behind....and this is ALL water powered, so the water has to continually run during the whole cycle.......which is about 5-7 minutes.....even if the dishes were not clean at the end, you could run it again.....no big deal for a extremely short cycle.....but have never seen a reason to run it again...

 

[whirlcool]

Wow! All those cups spinning around in that Kaiser reminded me of a amusement park ride for dishes. I wonder if loaded with glasses how many would be broken?