Filter Housing

I started by dismantling my dishwasher from the top down, beginning with the water distributor propellor. Beneath that was a plastic filter that crumbled when you touched it, and basically came off in my hands. Eventually, I figured out that the motor could be removed when accessed from underneath, and once I got it out I just pulled everything apart. Some plastic parts only needed descaling, but others were essentially rotten. Both impellers were in particularly bad shape - their blades were broken off and their shafts were literally fused to the axle of the motor - I had to use a wood chisel & hammer to carve them off!

Putting everything back together was fairly straight forward - I wish some of the diagrams included with the parts were a little more detailed, but I found that if I paid close attention to the design of every part there was some logic to how they fit with one another. The only real problem I had was with the filter cover - this part had a needlessly complicated attachment design that required a special Frigidaire tool to snap into place that I did not have - ultimately I had to modify the part to get it to fit in place and then devise another means of securing it.

In the end, everything worked out fine - the dishwasher has never worked or sounded better!

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A few days after I got the dishwasher working again, my garbage disposal jammed. Upon inspection, I determined that a blade from the lower impeller of my dishwasher was the culprit! Dispirited, I began the tedious process of taking apart the dishwasher again, expecting to find a shattered impeller that I must have somehow installed incorrectly. But when I got everything open, the lower impeller looked perfect! It must have been a blade from the old impeller that jammed my disposal. As a head's up, if your own dishwasher suffers a mechanical failure, be sure none of the parts wind up in your disposal.