Wash Impeller

First I removed the lower spray arm by removing the middle retainer nut. Next remove the 3 screws holding the outer shroud in place. Next remove 6 screws holding the water pump top housing in place. Under this housing you will find the impeller which is retained by a screw. Check the impeller closely for cracks especially near the center hex portion of the impeller. Replace if you have any doubt of it's integrity. Next remove the lower pump housing that has the screen material in the center. What I found was the nylon part that attaches to the shaft of the motor was stripped so the impeller would spin in it's normal direction ( counterclockwise) but under the load of water it would not. So I ordered a new impeller and seal kit with a metal sleeve and chooper blade. Follow the instructions provided in the new kit a reassemble accordingly.

took the bottom spray arm & lower plastic pieces out, unscrewed the impeller & replaced it. the original impeller which holds the disposal blade down & wore down & no longer retained the blade. snap.

I removed the lower wash arm held by a single center plastic coated nut with pliers.

I then removed the six pump housing screws and the three filter cover screws.

This allows access to the pump impeller which is held by one screw. Once it is removed the filter plate, chopper and motor seal can be removed.

I actually had done this before to find a noise. At the time I noticed the impeller had become shorter due to plastic breaking off the impeller. It still fit the motor shaft so I just cleaned out the plastic and screwed it back on. I did not check for water leakage until I noticed loose flooring material a couple weeks later.

This is the mistake I made. The impeller is made so it presses down upon the motor shaft seal expanding it to seal out water. Because the impeller was missing the lower skirt it was too short to but enough pressure upon the seal to stop leakage.
Never use a impeller which is damaged in any way.

Due to this error I have had to buy a motor assy also. It was destroyed by the water.

First of all I shut the power off to the dishwasher at the breaker box. Turn the water off to the dishwasher. Unhook the water line and then remove the screws that go around the outside trim edge of the dihwasher that secures it to the cabinets. Then you will want to look at the adjustable legs on the dishwasher. You may need to lower the legs to get the dishwasher out from underneath the counter top. While you are doing this you should also pay attention to your drain hose. My drain hose had plenty of slack so I was able to pull my dishwasher out from underneath the cabinet and then unhook it. You should have towels or a bucket in place to catch any water that is inside the drain hose. Next I laid the dishwasher over on its left side and I was able to access the pump. I then used a flat screw driver to remove the hose clamp and remov the drain hose from the pump. I then unplugged 1 wire connector and a bracket and could turn the pump counter clockwise and removed it from the dishwasher. There is a bracket that must be removed from the old pump to the new pump. Once this is accomplished You are ready to reinstall the new pump. I took a towel and wiped the area where the pump hooks into the dishwasher to make sure all debris was removed. I then used a very small amount of gasket sealer and placed it around the "O" Ring on the new pump. Next place the pump back in the whole and turn in a clock wise direction securing it back into the dishwasher. Hook up the drain hose and the wire connector. Make sure the bracket is postioned properly and you are ready to put dishwasher back under the counter.

This repair was really three separate easy repairs.

The top rack docking station is really simple -- pop the old one off and snap the new one on.

The impeller is easy IF you have the right Torx screwdriver. You have to take a few layers of water handling plastic parts off to get the the impeller, but it's all pretty easy. I did strep a couple of Torx bits when I put one of the parts back on, but I've had this apart at least three times and they held up the first few times. I'll buy some new screws next time.

There are a few things to keep in mind when changing the door latch and control panel. First, change the latch as soon as it breaks, instead of waiting for it to break more and destroy the control panel in the meantime. I'd have save $60 and most of the work if I hadn't put it off. Second, turn off the power. Changing the panel requires removing and replacing some wires, and it would be EASY to contact wires that you probably don't want to. A nutdriver makes quick work of everything that the Torx doesn't fit, and the remove/replace is pretty easy. Be attentive when refitting the ribbon cable for the control panel - if you're not familiar with this kind of connector you need to figure out the funky slidelock mechanism of the shell. It's easy though.

All the parts fit perfectly, and appear to be factory exact replacements. It works fine now, too.

I have done two repairs, and both times PartSelect.com came to the rescue! The first repair was a few years ago when the dishwasher would run but nothing got wet. It made all the right noises except the sound of water being thrown around, because no water was being pumped! This resulted from a cheap plastic "chopper" assembly that stripped and wouldn't drive the impeller. PartSelect sold me a solid metal replacement part for under $10 and that fixed the problem for several years.

Recently, we had a different problem where the dishwasher completely haulted and the wash motor wouldn't run. This was caused by a faulty impeller, another cheap plastic part. The wash impeller fragmented around the drive shaft to where it sat uneven and thus created too much resistance for the motor to drive it. I removed the impeller, superglued the plastic parts together so that I could then wrap them in copper wire (about 1mm diameter), and then I hot-glued over the copper wrapping to secure the entire thing and to help keep water out of it. I did this so that we could wash dishes while we waited for the new impeller. Well the new impeller came several days early and so far I have just been too lazy to go remove the makeshift part. I figure it will fail sooner or later and then I will install my new part which should give me at least 9 more years of trouble free washing!

Impeller bolts to plastic chopper mount which is screwed to the top of the motor. Threads on chopper mount were stripped causing impeller to not spin fast enough (replacement mount, which is part of the chopper kit, is metal). Installtion was not difficult.
You have to reach underneath the washer and wedge a screwdriver on top of the motor to hold the shaft from moving.

I'm telling this story for my husband who is a pretty handy guy--I watched him do the repair. I had had someone out to look at the dishwasher and they said it would be $284 to fix this one little thing because you couldn't buy the one little part separately, you had to buy a whole new motor. Since the dishwasher is old, it didn't make sense to invest this much in it--might as well buy a new one for that kind of money. My husband did some looking around and found the part on your site and installed it himself. So the cost was under $40. The dishwasher is now working better than it had been for a while.

Removed the screws that held the spray arm. Remove dthe screws that held the flow filter flow plate assembly. Removed screw holding the impeller. Thoroughly cleaned all spray arms and associated tubing. Reassembled parts. Installed air gap assembly between dishwasher and garbage disposal (which I should have 4 years ago). Unit runs fine now.