Dishwasher Spray Arm Middle WP8535086

After struggling with the Sump / Motor Assembly for over an hour, I applied a generous coating of silicone lube to the rubber gasket, seated the Assembly and put in 2 of the retention clips. Then, with the aid of a 20 weight to hold the Assembly in its fully seated position, I was able to insert the 3rd retention clip. This method worke ... Read more d well but the company video does not show doing anything like this. Without the lube and weight installation is probably a two person job.
All the rest of the assembly went easy. The Dishwasher now works like a brand new one.

I removed the upper dishwasher rack and disassembled the middle spray arm as described in other posts. Replacement was easy. The difficult part was to figure out what was causing my dishwasher to leak. I had seen many references on line to leaks being caused by the door seal or lower vent wear. I had replaced both. Those replacements ... Read more resulted in less leaking, but I still had water coming out. There were also references to leaks sometimes being caused when the lower spray arm was cracked, but mine was fine. (My dishwasher has an aluminum lower arm, so it wouldn't crack.) I discovered the middle spray arm was cracked when replacing the upper dish rack. (It was starting to rust.) Apparently, when the middle spray arm is cracked, the heavier circular water flow from it creates a wave motion (vortex) in the bottom of the dishwasher. That pushes water past the seals at the bottom of the door. Once I replaced the middle spray arm the water leak problem disappeared. As an added bonus, my glasses came out cleaner! I have never seen a post indicating that a cracked middle spray arm could lead to water leakage, so hopefully this post solves someone else's mystery problem!

Had trouble finding my model dishwasher so i called Part Select and we were able to identify the same parts from a newer model. Repair was to replace the entire spray arm assembly, it went well with no problems.

The most difficult part of this was figuring out the problem was with the middle spray arm - that it was not spinning (and thus not rinsing the top dishes). I could spin it by hand fine - but if I watched its position while the machine was running (open/close the door) I saw it wasn't moving. I took out the top shelf (with spray arm atta ... Read more ched) and connected it to the garden hose. I could see then that the arm was sagging and hitting the rear connection, preventing it from spinning. To replace I removed the plugs from the top shelf side-rails (bend the rail open with your thumb and tip the plugs out of the rail to the right for the left rail, to the left for the right rail. this is easier than pulling them out the end of the rail). Slide out the top shelf. Turn over, remove the phillips screw and pull off the manifold, and middle spray arm. Replace with the new parts. I also replaced the top spray arm (which was very loose, and probably not spraying well because it was so loose). For this I unclipped the top feed tube and pulled off the old sprayer. Put a towel in the bottom rack of the washer so you don't drop the little pieces into the pump below. The top spray arm simply snaps in with the two connectors (the pointy one attaches through the feed tube).