More to it or maybe less to it than meets the eye!
Andrew,
Your machine probably has many more years of life left in it with some repair work done to it.
There are a number of reasons why you are not getting clean dishes from this machine and the major one is the failure of the washarm support itself where the plastic wears out and the water sprays right out of the bottom of the lower arm and back into the sump and more often, the white bushings inside the support wear out and the bottom one moves up with the water and effectively blocks off the lower arm and all the water winds up going up to the top arm. I will post pics at the end of this from a 18-20 series support but the problem will be obvious.
For the record, the water that flows thru the washarm comes from the wash pump impeller and goes directly into the arm after passing thru the stainless steel filter.The drain impeller/garbage disposer blade grinds up the food particles and sends them to the soil chamber under the arm which is what is under that fine mesh screen that seems to have a hole in it. Normally that soil is held there until the pump reverses and drains whereby the small holes under the washarm will rinse the soil down from the chamber and out the drain.
With the hole in the screen, those small bits of food wind up getting sucked right into the intake flow of the wash pump and get thrown back out on to the dishes. Also, it looks like you are missing the coarse strainer that clips into the side of the pump as well. This will allow larger particles to get through to the pump intake as well. Normally these items will get ground up and sent to the soil chamber as well so again, you are compounding the problem of soil getting washed on to the dishes.
That fine mesh screen and wash arm support is actually no longer available but I know that John, Combo 52 has a few used ones and if you really search hard enough, you can probably purchase the screening from a place like McMaster Carr and reline the top of the housing. I don't have the specs on the mesh size with me but will post it later tonight for you.
If the bushings are moving around, you can disassemble the support from the bottom and see if you can simply reclip it in place or perhaps use a suitable material to "glue" it in place.
I may be parting out my Monterrey as I need a timer for it and I still have a spare Superba 22 that I like better so I may have the complete pump and washarm available.
If you replace the parts you need, it should be a great machine for you.
The first picture is what the bushing should look like if it is in its proper place. The next one is the wrong position. It makes all the difference in the world!
Hope this helps.
