DWU8912AAE Maytag Dishwasher - Instructions

After performing some maintenance to get the water flowing properly through the system (that's another story) the door was leaking very badly during any test run of the dishwasher.

We thought it was the gasket because the old one was calcified and dried out from years of harder water.

We ordered the new one and in minutes after receiving the new gasket we had a firm seal and our dishwasher was back in action.

The bottom rack was easiest, just picked it up out of the dishwasher and moved the sprayer and the silverware holder from the old rack to the new rack and set it back in the dishwasher. The top rack was a little tricky, it took a minute to figure out to remove the little end-caps on the runners and then it just slid out. Slid the new one in, replaced the caps and moved the upper rack basket. It took less than 15 minutes to fix and now it's like a brand new dishwasher!

1 - Turned off the power
2 - Loosened screws on inside door panel
3 - Removed panel (still attached by ground wire)
4 - Removed black swtich cover
5 - Removed screws holding latch assembly
6 - Dropped in new latch
7 - Pulled away plastic switch holder, carefully
8 - Examined black micro switches (Land R); noticed right switch button defective
9 - Removed wires (2) from clips on right switch
10 - Pulled out switch (holding up plastic arm)
11 - Replaced defective switch from those in dorr switch assembly (I did not replace the plastic assembly itself, since the old one was OK, but you could if you wanted to be punctilious about it.
12 - Screwed assembly back in position
13 - Put on black cover again
14 - put on inner plastic door panel
15 - Screwed panel back
16 - Ran a load of dishes - perfect!

I removed the screws on the inside of the door. Removed the cover and changed door switch and holder and put the new one in. Replaced the cover
all in less than half an hour.

The real cause of the leak had nothing to do with the foam strip. The latch for the front loading door at the top needed to be adjusted to hold the door in tighter to the rubber door seal. This simple adjustment stopped the leak but since the foam seal was all encrusted with dried detergent from probably years of absorbing the leak, I replaced it with your new foam strip. I used a screw driver with torx bit and removed the stainless screws holding the inner door to the outer door. Once these were separated I removed the old foam strip using a putty knife and lacquer thinner. Placing the new strip onto these cleaned surfaces was the easiest part of the whole repair.

The dishwasher is well engineered to perform this work.

Remove the bottom two panels to provide access and visibility to base of pump motor.

Locate plastic pump locking lever and push toward rear of DW to unlock pump from DW.

Inside the DW remove basketsand spray arms. Revove screws holding cover over pump motor and remove cover.

From below raise pump motor and support with block (piece of 2x4 worked well).

insde DW, removre old gasket, clean well around pump and botom of DW, install new gasket.

From below remove block to drop pump motro back into place, and re-tighten locking lever by pull toward you.

re-assemble inside componets, run through a rinse cycle to test for leaks and replace bottom panels.




I

Suspecting the problem was a sticky gasket on the old detergent cup lid, I replaced the lid.
First remove the old lid by pushing one of the hinge pins (the one without a spring) out of the cylinder hole in the dishwasher door. Important: before completely removing the lid, note how the spring is installed on the other pin. Then, simply install the new lid and spring and push the non-spring pin back into the cylinder hole in the DW door.
My dishwasher now works fine! :-)

I was able to remove the old handle and place it on the new basket - using only a screw driver.

Read the experiences here, very helpful. Bottom slides out first - really easy. The new part comes with rollers, you don't need to remove the old ones. Now the only problem, getting the sprayer off the bottom basket. Look carefullty, you must use a screwdriver to release one side of the sprayer, then it works off easily. Make sure you note the orientation of the base of the sprayer. Reverse steps above and you are done. New tray slides in. Our new tray was a bit wider than the old one so we needed to use a bit of pressure to "shrink" the back just a wee bit.

The upper is easy also. Since the rails are uneven, make sure you put the high rollers on the high side no matter what your wife told about how it is supposed to go in. The end caps snap inward and slide out of the rails. Easy once you know. The uneven rails are obvious once you notice. Total time was 45 minuts, 30 of which was figuring out how to get the sprayer off without damage.

Would be nice to know the factory recommendation for removing the sprayer.

The upper washer arm can be removed by just snapping it out of place. Just take a screw driver and put in underneath the spray arm and pry it out of its socket. It will just snap out its place. Sometimes this retainer will break so make sure you have this retainer before trying to remove the upper spary arm. I removed the spray arm and back flushed it out with a garden hose to get the debri out of the washer arm. The holes are all clean now. Washes much better now. To put in back on just put the washer arm back where it goes and then just snap the clip back in its hole. Pretty easy fix.

Replaced upper and lower racks. The new lower rack has a design flaw: it has 3 wheels on each side, but should have 4 wheels on each side. When you pull out the bottom rack, the last set of wheels drop down into the open space where the door hinges to the cabinet, causing the dishes to bounce and shake around. Then when you push rack in, you have to lift it back up onto the tracks made for the wheels to roll on. You can't pull the bottom rack out far enough to access the back of the rack very well.

Removed old gasket and foam strip. Cleaned area. Installed door gasket. Trimmed foam strip to fit and installed.

Leak has stopped!

The replacement of the spring linkage was simple - the pulling out and pushing in of the under-the-counter dishwasher was the difficult and time-consuming part. The repair of the part took less than a minute.

The actual repair -
1. Hook the linkage to the dishwasher door
2. Hook the spring to the dishwasher base
3. Hook the spring to the linkage.

Getting the dishwasher out to be able to make the repair involved:
1. Unscrewing the base panel (6 screws had to be removed)
2. Unscrewing the dishwasher from the counter (two screws)
3. Turning off the water supply
4. Disconnecting the inline water supply from the dishwasher.

Once the part was replaced, I had to return the dishwasher to its original position, which meant performing the four steps (in reverse) used to pull out the dishwasher.

First I disconnected the dishwasher electric, water supply and discharge hoses. I then pulled the dishwasher out. After opening the door, I removed the retainer clip holding the upper wash arm, then the nut holding the top shower hose in place. Close the door and lean the dishwasher on its side to get at the underside where the other end of the hose is. Loosen the hose clamp and remove the top shower hose. Reassemble everything in reverse order. In hindsight, I didn't need to buy the new hose clamp or the tub top washer (I reused the originals). Good luck!

I removed the seven screws from the back panel of the door (special tool) and seperated the back panel from the front. My wife held the back up and I removed the two wax motors (detergent cup and rinse aid), which were clipped in place. I had turned off power to the dishwasher, so I simply unplugged each wax motor from the wiring harness, plugged the wax motors in and clipped them in place, making sure that the wiring harness was put back in the same place. Then I put the back panel back on the door, turned the power on and tested the repair. The dishwasher worked perfectly. Thanks to PartSelect for helping me solve the problem. The parts arrived in two days!