MDC5100AWB 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 rear right caster (wheel) under our fairly new portable dishwasher broke. Upon looking up the part, I discovered that it did not bolt into place, meaning that the exterior skin of the dishwasher did not have to be removed and that more than likely I could fix it myself.

The replacement wheels from Partselect were nicer quality than what the original was and showed up just two days after they were ordered.

However, getting what remained of the broken caster out was frustrating. I am not unhandy around the house, having put in two new bathrooms and a staircase.

But after yanking and prying on the broken caster for 20 minutes (slamming my fingers into the floor every time the pliers slipped), I could see where most people would give up and call a repairman. Finally, with help from small pry bar, the broken caster popped loose. Thankfully, putting the new in was as simple as sliding it into place.

Unfortunately, after all that work, we discovered the new caster was slightly taller than the old, leaving the dishwasher with a distinct wobble that my wife said was unacceptable. She, of course, had not been repeatedly introducing her hand to the floor.

I had ordered two replacement casters, thinking that another of the originals might break. But getting the second one out proved just as difficult as the first, even with the help of the pry bar.

After much cussing and kissing of finger booboos, our Maytag dishwasher is as good as the day we brought it home.

Our first effort was to replace the lower washer arm that had splits in the sides of this plastic part. While this increased the water pressure in the wash cycle some it was not enough to adequately wash the dishes. We read that someone else had to clean out the filter which was below the lower washer arm assembly. Thus, we took off the loweer arm assembly by screwing off the hold down assembly in the middle of the arm. We then took off the pump cover by removing the 6 screws that hold it in place with a #3 metric allen wrench. When we took of the cover we could see that the pump filter was so covered with deposits that it was not letting the water through to the pump. Rather than spend hours trying to clean the filter and pump cover we decided it was easier to repalce them. Thus, we ordered the parts and replaced them. The dishwaster is now working fine. We appreciated the information that others had shared that helped us find and fix the problem.

I googled the simptoms online, and found that the most common cause for a door leak was the door seal. I purchased the seal online from PartSelect.com. Two days later, the part arrived. I pulled out the old seal and pushed in the new one. No tools required. That fixed the problem. While looking at the parts diagram, I noticed that my dishwasher didn't have the water deflectors installed. I don't know if they were ever there. They were cheap, so I ordered them online and slid them into place in less than 10 seconds. Again, no tools required. Dishwasher runs great, no leaks.

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.

I removed the plastic retainer that held the lower spray arm in place. After removing the lower spray arm I was able to remove the 6 hex screws that held the cover over the filter screen and the discharge housing assembly. I was then able to remove the bolts that held the upper part of the discharge housing assembly, and replaced it with the new part that I received. The rest of the job was simply putting it back together.

Note: While repairing the broken part, I noticed a small leak under the machine around the float assembly. This was simple to fix. Remove the small lock ring on the bottom of the float. Pull the float out and clean the grease and soap scum out of it. Put it back in and attach the lock ring. No more leak and the water gets turned off when the float activates the switch. Something that everyone should check periodically.

After I ruled out a hose blockage I looked in the washer.

Took the washer assembly apart, pretty straight forward, used the parts diagrams on this site for help. Found the drain impellor was jammed with glass and had lost a lot of its fins.

Found exactly what I needed here. Had it back together in less than an hour, and it seems to be working like new.

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

Leak has stopped!

First I had to remove two screws, one on either side of door. I then removed the panel, put the new one in its place, and screwed the two screws back in. Done. Simple.

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!