The Mechanical Restoration of the Youngstown Dishwasher

[Unimatic1140]

In this thread I will chronicle the mechanical work of the Youngstown Dishwasher.

First on the list is the water system and it appears that there are three items in the water system that need to be worked on, the Drain Valve, the Mechanical Water Valve and Pump Shaft Seal.

So I started with the drain valve. It uses a rubber ball to seal up the drain hole, but the rubber ball couldn't not sit completely down and seal the drain hole because of hard water deposits. The drain valve is cast out of Brass and simply seals (or ties to) with a rubber super ball! It is very cool and VERY primitive, I just love primitive parts in our machines. Check this part out...

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-...cgi?dir=/RESTORATIONS/_YOUNGSTOWN_RESTORATION

 

[compwhiz128]

Ya should of used CLR, but now I think lime away is better.

 

[retromom]

Say YAY for Youngstown

Robert:

It's amazing how simple engineering can be so efficient! You've done a great job cleaning up those parts. Coming from what I perceive to be the "hard water capital" of the US, I know how pesky those mineral deposits can be!

Venus

 

[helicaldrive]

Hey Culligan Man!

Just give him a jingle and buy yourself a water softener. You won't be sorry. Once you have one, you'll never want to be without it. No self-respecting appliance aficionado should put hard water in a machine.

You won't believe how good your clothes will feel the first time you wash them in softened water (assuming you remember to use far less detergent than you're used to).

Also, your skin won't itch anymore after showering because there aren't any mineral residues ground into your skin when you towel dry.

And the softened water feels oh so...slick and slippery...when you shower.

P.S. Once you have softened water, you can't use Jet-Dry in a dishwasher, or else the water will suds up and lock the pump. Not to worry, though. Dishes dry spotlessly.

 

[christfr]

cool

i see your having fun already..awesome!!!

 

[bpetersxx]

jetdry

Is that the reason the DW foams with JetDry

Oh good no more jetdry

 

[toggleswitch]

So,

is this a gravity or pumped drain?

Looks like gravity to these peepers.

 

[bpetersxx]

is this going to be at or near the James DW

as I recall the James has gravity drain and has a low drain at that spot

 

[Brent-Aucoin]

Robert,
Thanks for the pictures.
You are getting to the bottom of things!
I love the Ball! That does the trick! What more do you need?!
You know, as far as "what is old, is new again," the HE3T that I have, and all of the other Whirlpool names uses a "Eco Ball" for the drain. So no water can leave, or backwash enter, etc., no matter what position the drain hose is in. I wonder if they go the idea from the Jamestown dishwasher.
Your work is really fun. I enjoy watching you redo this machine!
Can't wait for your "virgin" load.
Thanks again!
Brent

 

[jetcone]

Isn't wild how Brass shows up in Roberts D/W?

They had to use Brass because SS was too expensive and scarce in the 1940's and the plastics available then would never have stood up to all that hot corrosive D/W waste. You might have gotten away with Bakelite but bakelite molds cost even then $50,000 to produce. Brass was much cheaper to mold!

Aluminum would have failed quickly too.

There was a metal blend developed at the turn of the century which was the equivalent of SS today it was called MONEL metal.It had a nickel appearance but I bet it was more expensive than Brass or Bronze.
I'll have to dig up some stuff on Monel metal. It was used in the steam kettles on Titanic and they are as shiney today as when the Ship went down!

 

[Unimatic1140]

Its a gravity drain Steve. Pete the James dishwasher has a pump, but the Apex has also has a gravity drain like the Youngstown.

 

[spiraclean]

Hi Robert,
Thanks for the restoration pictures I always enjoy them; do you use Adobe Photoshop? The Lime Away product seems to be great stuff; I have never seen it in the UK who makes it?

All the best.
Hugh

 

[mayken4now]

Robert:

The dishwasher is a wonderful machine. I am glad you finally got one and fixed the problem so quick. I usually can diagnose real quick, and just "know where to go" to git-r-done.

Steve

 

[gansky1]

I can't wait to see this running - and hear it, I'll bet it's very exciting!

 

[tomturbomatic]

MONEL

Jon, Monel was also called German silver. The John & Mabel Ringling house/museum Ca Da Zan in Sarasota has kitchen sinks made of this. The kitchen there is neat with both gas and electric ranges from the 20s. A friend gave us his ooooold water heater installed in the late 1930s with a Monel tank. The tank is still good, but other parts began to fail after 60+ years.

 

[Unimatic1140]

The Mechanical Faucet

If all goes well (and as many of us know it usually doesn't) I hope to be washing the virgin load of dishes by the end of week in the Youngstown. I've got the necessary parts to repair the water inlet valve which I'm going do this evening, pictures to come. I'm going to rename the water valve the "Mechanical Faucet" because that is what it really is!

 

[toggleswitch]

hmmm...

wouldn't want the power to go out while the valve was open.....

 

[Unimatic1140]

wouldn't want the power to go out while the valve was open

That's right Steve, and to make it even more exciting for our modern housewife, if the power goes out and the timer cam has push up the lever and opened the water valve, there is absolutely no way to manually turn the timer to off to close the water valve.

Get your boots on boys!

 

[DADoES]

Power Failures & Jammed Timers

Was this serious flaw a known thing at the time? There's nothing in the user manual about troubleshooting or "in case of difficulty." What, Youngstown Kitchens had a trained service tech available 24/7 on every block, LOL!?

 

[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!!