Soon to be very COOL KitchenAid KD-12 Dishwasher

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You Bastard! opening a window on the Forbidden Cycle before me!

Well I figured I better just go ahead and do it, besides Jon you're too busy working on making Dash again, remember
S13.gif
 
ooooh how fabulous. Beware of #1 witch with power-tools!

~I simply wired it in series with the motor, so whenever the dishwasher pump motor is running my drain pump runs as well.

:-)

uhm, I believe you mean wired in parallel. Black to black, (hot) white to white (neutral) wire. Wired in series means the power first goes through one then the other. In that case each one would get half of 110v, and we don't want that!

SPeaking of circuits in series:

So what did you do with the detergent dispenser mechanism? Is it a bi-metal thingie? Let me explain; in some machines (I'm thinking of D&Ms from the 70's) there is a bi-metal "coil" that heats and bends/warps to release the spring-loaded detergent cup. Alas, it is NOT a 110v device and IIRC it was (briefly) wired in series (via the timer) with the heater to reduce its voltage. So, in theory, if the whole works went bye-bye it may be appropiate to electrically "short it out" to ensure the heater is energized at all times.

What say you, sir?
 
uhm, I believe you mean wired in parallel.
Yes Toggles that is what I meant, after I posted that I realized I got the terms parallel and series mixed up. The hot wire is coming from the timer to the drain pump and the neutral wire is tied directly to the neutral buss.

So what did you do with the detergent dispenser mechanism?
In 1957 with the exception of the Hotpoint (I believe) there were no detergent dispensers in dishwashers yet :). In the '57 KitchenAid its simply a little stainless steel cup.
 
mY LATE father pruchased the same machine in 1954. I still use it daily and it has NEVER had a service call. It is extremely well made and if loaded properly will do a great job with the dishes ...and not take all day to do it. The only thing Iv'e ever had to do with it is to replace the rubber impeller in the pump. Not able to find an exact replacement , I took the little pump motor down to our local blacksmith and he fashioned one out of brass. That was 12 or 13 years ago...and it still is perfect.It is a wonderful machine.
 
An impeller "fashioned?"

Hmmm. Great to hear how well your Kitchenaid has worked for all these years. A true testament to how well a machine can be designed.

About that impeller.. I have to wonder if your fixit man didn't just go over to the Hobart office and buy an impeller! Yours was not made of rubber but a bakelite composite and the commercial machines came equipped with a brass impeller as well as all metal pump housings which would probably last for 100 years! Believe it or not, we did change alot of them out when the UM dishwashers were around. They had a brass ring on them which would wear a bit and the washarms would wear out on the matching surface, but considering one of these machines might do 100 or more cycles a day, replacing these parts would not be unexpected after a few years!
In the home..decades if not centuries!

Attached is the parts breakdown of the commercial machine's Pump .You can see the similarities in the parts except for the materials used to make them. Very expensive these days but still available.
Hobart Stopped producing the UM series in 1979 for all intents and purposes. The WM series was already being built and sold and expanded upon from the basic machine. These were based on the 15 series then had a 16 series tank but no dryer, no elements and a single 3 minute cycleand required 180 degree water unless it had a Chlorinator.Later editions of the WM's had regular and extended cycles as well.
Hope your machine gives you more and more years of use.

7-8-2008-18-39-55--stevet.jpg
 
As far as I can remember...

Early KitchenAids had the mesh baskets to hold the detergent as my Kd2. There was a friend of my Mom's that had a Kd12 and it was mounted in the Silverware basket. The pic I'm attaching my Kd2 (circa 1957) is the exact detergent server for those models.On the Front loaders it used to sit on the left of the silverware basket. On the Top loaders like mine, it sits on the center of the upper rack.

7-8-2008-21-25-17--toploader55.jpg
 
The dishwasher at Dunkin Donuts was just like that, but all stainless steel, and had a temperature gauge at the bottom panel. It was used mostly to wash the coffee cups and had a very short cycle, one wash (the girls just tossed a teaspoon of detergent on the door) and one rinse. But while the wash was a normal 120 degrees, the rinse was a blistering hot 180 degrees, so no need for a drying heating, the steam just flashed off the cups.

This dishwasher did have the washarm, but it was gray rather than blue, but did not have a heater at all. In back of the store was a water heater that I called the Rude Dragon because it was made by Ruud and sounded like a dragon. In the plumbing on top was a valve arrangment that controlled the temperature of the hot water. The dragon heated the water to too dangerous for the home 180 degrees, and when the dishwasher rinsed, it drew directly from the dragon. But during the wash (there must have been 2 water valves) the dishwasher drew from a mixing valve which mixed some cold water with the incredibly hot water to just have hot water. The other faucets in the store drew from this valve too. The store is all closed up and for sale, and decaying but I think this dishwasher is still there.
 
I remember the gray wash arms also!
There was a few Waffle Houses that I went to, that were older, and had this type of washer. Was it like a "camel back"?
I had enough drinks in me from the night to ask them if I could play with it. Their cook, you know the rest, said sure....
I never went any further than me playing with this vintage Hobart! I think I washed plates and such for about an hour! (yes, i had to pay the bill for my munchies) Later I even thought about being a dishwasher for them so I could play with it a few hours a week.
What a life right? Youth!
Brent
 
Of Camels and coffee..one lump or two?

Neptunebob, the setup for that undercounter at Dunkin was a dual inlet valve setup where the first wash filled, like you said with the "mixed" water from the Dragon and the final rinse would fill thru the second valve for the 180 degree sanitizing portion and then flash dry! That was a model UM4-D with the D signifying "dual" valves! Very logical, no?
As far as Brent and his waffle house nightmares, that was not a UM series he washed dishes in.. That would have been a model
SM-6 machine which was the smaller of the roll top designs Hobart manufactured. That had a smaller than standard 20x20 inch rack so it would fit in the space of the counters at waffle house and was also a popular unit in many donut shops and nursing homes and church kitchens etc.
The UM and KD 10-thru 14 series also had a smaller rack than what we are used to seeing. The 15 and up went to the more industry standard sized racks being used at that time by most manufacturers and would accommodate the standard commercial 20x20 inch racks. In fact the domestic racks for those units were actually even bigger than the 20x20 as the WM's needed a carrier rack to hold the 20x20 and the WM-5s had a slider channel welded to the tank where the rollers would have normally gone so they could eliminate the carrier rack and just use the normal 20x20 racks by themselves.

Interestingly, Hobart stopped production of the SM series and Waffle house had to go to Champion Industries to have them make a new rolltop for them. Hobart required too many of them for a profitable production run. IIRC, Champion's model number was RB-16 and they made them for a short period of time and apparantly have stopped. I guess one of us has to stop by a waffle house and see what they are using!
 
Choices, Choices....

Have you decided on a color yet?
Can't wait to see the video!
I know you have been busy, but just curious.
Hope you had a great weekend!
Brent
 
Nope not yet, but I did find an amazingly close match to 1950s Frigidaire pink in gloss spray form at Home Depot. I've never seen such a close match to a 50's pink before.
 
Pink sounds nice! I always loved the Frigidaire pink!
Are you going to put this in your kitchen? Or have it in your basement?
It would be awesome in your kitchen!
Brent
 
As I recall, according to the service manual, the wash arm on the KD-2P is supposed to spin at least 60 rpm with clean water and no detergent. I remember timing mine (obvious from the sound, esp with an empty unit) and it met the spec.
 
Washer Arm Design Question

We have a pink KitchenAid K-12 dishwasher that came with our 1959 home that we bought a few decades ago. It still works okay, but it should rotate faster. Is there supposed to be a ball bearing or washer at the top of the shaft where the cast iron wash arm sits? I hear a metal on metal sound when turn it by hand. And when I give it a push, it revolves 1 1/2 times before coming to a stop. What lubrication is recommended? Thanks for any help.
 

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