The Mechanical Restoration of the Youngstown Dishwasher

[gansky1]

Power Loss = Water Rising??

Is there no overflow tube or other protection against flooding? Is it all timed water fills? I'm sure the odds are pretty high that in the course of the nine minute cycle the power would blink off, but who knows? Power outages and surges were somewhat commonplace then...

 

[jetcone]

Thanks Tom

I did not know MONEL was also known as German Silver. I had a coin as a kid made out of GS and now that I think back on it it was the same color gray!

How could they produce a DW with such a flaw?? Power out = wash the floor!!!!
And there was no shut off valve needed upon installation?? Was the machine supposed to be hooked up ahead of the sink faucet so you could use that shut off?? The sink + DW models must have been plumbed that way!!
Does anybody have the install instructions for this machine??

jet

 

[chachp]

If that did happen wouldn't it fill up like a bathtub?

 

[brisnat81]

Blackstone

Hi Guys,

Remember that the original blackstones had the same issue unless they were connected to a floor drain. Such is the problem of a mechanical valve.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Jon I posted the owners manual and installation instructions in the Owners Manual Library. The Install Instr. are the last four pages of the adobe acrobat file.

Well here is the water valve out of the machine...

 

[Unimatic1140]

Such a common part, but such an uncommon size!

The faucet washer needs to be replaced, I thought it was standard, but after visiting a few hardware stores I found out its smaller than the smallest common faucet washer (#000). So tomorrow I will try a few specialty plumbing stores and see what they recommend. Worse comes to worse I could always figure out a way around this, but I would prefer to use the original water valve if all possible.

Greg the fills are measured, there is a switch on the pump that detects how much water pressure is going through the pump body and it keeps the timer motor from moving until the this water pressure switch is satisified.

 

[kenmore1978]

washer

You could probably carefully trim the washer down to the right size

 

[christfr]

cool

roberts going to town..how cool i can see that machine is loving you already!!!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Update on the Mechanical Water Faucet

Well going to the "Specialty" Plumbing outlets I found they had the exact same faucet washers as the hardware stores. And of course I got a lot of "I've never seen any faucet washer like that before" (I'm used to that reaction). So I bought a few of the smallest faucet washers I could find and used my Dremmel tool to grind the back of the washer down to a small enough size to fit in the cavity in the bottom of the stem. It works! YAY, at least it works for now, no drips, but I will keep a watch on it for a while. Wouldn't want to come home to an overflowing Youngstown.

Tonight I'll work on the pump shaft seal. And the it will be time to wash dishes!

 

[frontaloadotmy]

Just think!!!

No cumbersome fabrication of invisible lid for this model.
Can scarcely wait to see and hear the powerful Jet Tower
surgeation

 

[jetcone]

Jet Tower Surgeation!!

I LUV THAT!!

Remember Robert our Egg Mayonaise test! We used it in the James!! The Youngstown must pass that one to be classified as a daily driver!!

 

[Unimatic1140]

The Youngstown must pass that one to be classified as a daily driver!!

DOES IT! The Fist of Jetcone comes down hard, ouch.

Ummmm I think it will win enough points for drama and cuteness alone. Besides if I adjust the "circuitry" so the cycle runs 90 minutes instead of nine, it will have no excuse for not getting things clean. We will see. I can tell just by looking at it, it’s going to have a very limited capacity. But that's OK I have the Frigidaire, KitchenAid, Apex, James and Westinghouse dishwashers hooked up and ready to go to take up the slack. No leftover dishes in the sink that couldn't fit in the dishwasher in our house! It is odd carrying dishes downstairs to wash them, but its all part of the fun.

 

[toggleswitch]

carrying?

Round laundry basket lined with a large garbage bag...
Does WONDERS.

Targay (well in the beginning of summer) had this plastic thing that looks kinda like a woven straw ladies bag for that purpose.

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

Looks like things are shaping up great Robert.
SO little work for a dishwasher this old!
Do you know or not if the "holding tank" is working okay?
What is the temp of the holding tank as far as the water?
Oh....
Also, the Jamestown guide that you put on the site said to use several detergents. One of the detergents was "Chat." Have you or anyone else heard of it? I just love the name. Was it any good?
Thanks for the progress pictures.
Brent

 

[Unimatic1140]

Here is the latest update on the Youngstown.

The drain valve and water valve are now fixed and working perfectly. So last night I took apart the pump to see why it was leaking through its shaft. As I suspected the pump seal is pretty corroded and needs to be replaced. I found a seal in my "stash-o-seals" that fits but it’s meant to seal oil not water. While it helps and slows the leak down considerably, it still has a slow drip. But since the motor is coupled to the pump via a rubber coupler, there is no danger of the dripping water getting into the motor for now I will put a little rag down and move forward. I will be on the lookout for the proper seal though. Also the sleeve bearing in the pump is a bit worn and causes the pump to be nosier than it should be.

So I revved up the dishwasher last night. Very interesting machine. It opens the fill valve and starts the motor, pressure slowly but surely builds up in the pump and it starts to spray through the Jet-Tower. After 20 or so seconds of filling the Jet-Tower starts to rotate. After 60 or so seconds of filling there is enough water pressure going through the pump to activate the pump pressure switch and that starts the timer motor moving which closes the fill faucet valve and the cycle continues on.

Now here is a question for all of you out there who remember seeing Youngstown dishwashers years ago. In my machine when the tower is rotating it seems to slow down and speed up throughout the spray cycle. When it slows down you can feel vibration running through the machine, then the vibration stops and the Jet-Tower resumes full speed. Is this something you all remember with this machine, or is this a defect? I have a feeling it is a defect that I will have to fix, but I wanted to check with those of you who remember this machine first. Also how noisy do you remember this machine to be?

I believe there could be two reasons for this:

#1 Air is somehow being sucked into the pump and when it builds up enough air it is being expelled through the Jet-Tower.

#2 The Jet-Tower simply sits on a pointed shaft, maybe the point at the top of the shaft has worn a bit.

I'll be interested to hear what you guys think. Also Brent you asked about the water heater tank. Unfortunately it’s not heating so for now I bypassed it, but I do want to try and fix that too after I get the spray action working properly. I think the heating element has opened up.

I took some pictures of the seal and will post them later.

 

[duetboy]

Just Guessing...

I would have to guess #1, Air. I have very low water pressure at my house and the GE PowerShower does this if it doesn't have enough water....

duetboy

 

[gansky1]

Does the spray tower have any sort of bearing or glide at the bottom of the tower? Perhaps it's slowing down because it's not moving smoothly on the bottom of the shaft? Is there a perceptible vibration in the tower itself? (if you can even see that with the water shooting all over the place)

Have you tried stopping the tower from spinning to isolate that out of the equation?

 

[jetcone]

Robert

I remember turning the Jet tower when Mrs Cusano wasn't looking and the machine was empty. It sort of rattled like a bad bearing on a Kenmore or KA machine but when it came on with water it spun quickly around with no noise except the sloshing of the needle sprays and it turned continously, so fast it was hard to see the corners of the Jet Tower or that was caused by the spray hitting the glass it was a long time ago in a galaxy far far away!
Jet

 

[Unimatic1140]

The neat thing about the spray tower is at the bottom of it is held in perfect center alignment by two small streams of water 180 degrees apart. No bearing needed down there, and there is no visible vibration in the tower itself.

I spoke to John L. tonight about it and he also thinks since he's seen this problem with other dishwashers is if the pump seal and sleeve bearing is leaking like it is, it also is likely taking in air since the seal only leaks when the motor is off. Taking in small amounts of air will cause a momentary drop in pressure every 10 seconds or so.

Looks like I might have to replace the motor/pump assembly with something else. I'm going to try and find a new seal first. I hate to have to do that but this DW is too cool not to have the proper flow of water through the Jet-Tower!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Anyway, here are the first of five action shots, each one the pressure gets a little greater...