Dishwasher upper spray arm not turning despite water flowing

[Usenet]

Hi,

I have a Beko "DE 2541 FX" slimline dishwasher. The upper arm is not turning/spinning/rotating, even though water pours out the spray arm's holes.

I have thoroughly cleaned the entire dishwasher compartment: the door, the inside walls, the sump and filters, the upper and lower trays, the arms, just about everything.

Now the bottom spray arm works fine, goes merrily round and round spraying just dandy. If I give the bottom spray arm a good flick of the thumb, it spins freely and will do nine or ten complete revolutions until it stops. The upper arm is harder to turn, I can get it to rotate two or three times at most. I couldn't really say under oath that it turns "freely".

Should the upper spray arm rotate more freely?

The two arms are differently designed. The bottom spray arm is simpler -- it's all plastic and just "clicks" into position. The upper spray arm is slightly more complicated. The central hub is formed of three interlocking snap-together parts: 1) the long arm; 2) the bayonet-lock disc with o-ring; 3) the centre hole piece. The upper spray arm has a bayonet/"screw on" way of being attached. When I cleaned the upper arm, I had to pull out six or so hairs that were wrapped around the bayonet disc and centre-hole piece that form the hub. When the arm is assembled at the factory, the centre-hole snaps into the arm -- trapping and securing the bayonet-lock disc -- in such a way that you can't get at the snaps again to disassemble it. It makes it a bugger to clean the hub of hairs that have gotten wrapped around there! I have soaked the upper spray arm in hot vinegar for 12 hours.

**** If anyone has a Beko dishwasher, I would be most grateful if you could post the results of flicking the upper and lower spray arms on your machine. (Be prepared for a few drops of water to fly out!) How many complete revolutions does each do when you give a good flick with the thumb or finger? ****

With kind regards,

Sandy

[Lobster]

I'd still strongly recommend you run it on an empty cycle using one of those 'deep clean' bottles of dishwasher cleaner on as hot/long a cycle as possible. I was very scornful of those until I was advised to use them every couple of months by a dishwasher engineer after I was suffering similar symptoms to you.... when he visited to repair ours, he found pipes almost completely clogged with grease, which you wouldn't get at unless you took the machine apart.

I now use them regularly with much better results than before.

David

[Jim Elbrecht]

-snip-

Anyone else do this? I've had my Whirlpool going for 7-8 years now & never used a cleaner.

But I have replaced a few grinders, but it never seems to be greasy. [a nail was caught in the last dead one--- and someone wondered how hair got into the OPs dishwasher]

Probably a lot to do with detergent, water chemistry & how you use the dishwasher, but I wonder if I'm the only guy who doesn't wash his dishwasher.

Jim

[trader4]

I tried using one a month ago. I was having problems where glassware was coming out very spotted. I did some investigating and found loads of grease below the metal filter at the bottom. I removed the lower spray arm, the filter scree, cleaned everything I could get to. But, I figured there must be even more in places I can't get to. So, I bought the cleaner, which seems to consist of citric acid. Ran it with the hottest water I could get and added extra heat cycle.

After doing the manual clean and using the cleaner, the next few loads were better than previous, but still not real good. After that, things got back to normal. So, can't say for sure if it was the manual cleaning, the cleaner. More likely it was a combo of the two.

Another conclusion I've come to is to at least occasionally use very hot water right from the start and select extra heat. Normally, the dishes come out fine if I just start the dishwasher on a normal cycle and don't let the faucet run to get hot water there. It;s a long run to the water heater, and I'm sure the first cycle is tepid at best, the second is still probably not at 130 either. I really didn't care because the dishes were coming out clean and I figured I'm saving energy. But I would suspect that over time that might allow grease to build-up because the water isn't hot enough to keep it suspended.

To the OP, it would seem to me the upper arm should spin about freely by hand. If it isn't I would suspect that either there is some material in there or something has worn out.

[HeyBub]

Second that. My dishwasher occasionally leaked and it was a devil to find.

Turned out the water-level sensor was so caked with grease, chicken-fat, raisin rinds, and other effluvia that the float would STICK in the down position and more water would be supplied, eventually running out on the floor!

There's nasty down in there. Nasty with a capital NAS.

[Tim Watts]

HeyBub wibbled on Sunday 07 February 2010 18:11

Yeah - many dishwashers have a funky head exchanger "matrix" through which the waste water and incoming clean water pass, moving otherwise wasted heat into the incoming water. The one I've seen on my Bosch is quite tortuous inside so if anything is going to suffer, that will be one of the first waterways to get skanked up.

[trader4]

How in the world does that happen? In almost all cases, the incoming water is as hot or hotter than the water that's already in the dishwasher. Even on the ones where the dishwasher can heat the water itself, they generally only do it on cycles where you select extra heat. Otherwise the max temp is limited to the 130F incoming water. So, I don't see how this alleged heat recovery heat exchanger is going to work. In fact, in most cases it would seem to me that it would result in heat loss, not heat gain.

e quoted text -

[HeyBub]

I think the water in the washer is, or can be, WAY hotter than the temperature of the supply line (usually).

[Usenet]

Here I am completing this thread round full circle to some sort of resolution. (Am I the only one who hates searching through pages and pages of group threads, not one of which gets a real answer or a hint of a resolution??!)...

...I have run my dishwasher three times in succession (using Earth Friendly Products "Wave" citric acid based auto dishwasher gel) at the longest, two hour, hottest water setting (70C in my case) --

-- And it worked! After the first two goes, I noticed that the upper spray arm had changed position, and was delighted to find, at the end of the cycle, that the upper spray arm could be sent spinning round and round much more freely.

I'm vegetarian, with spring water, and pre-scrubbed the crockery before loading, and have -- until now -- used nothing but hot water in the dishwasher. (I eat eggs and dairy. It's difficult to get problems with solid fats and grease as a vegetarian.) I cleaned the filters and grid every six months or so.

However, over the course of three years, the dishwasher had got slightly grungy. This must have gradually made the upper spray arm stop turning.

So, to recap, running the dishwasher 3 times in succession on the hottest 70C, two-hour cycle, using either plain vinegar or a citric acid gel has cleaned everything out, and the spray arms both turn. The dishwasher is now working properly.

From now on I'm going to regularly use the citric acid gel cleaner, and to run the hot/long cleaning cycle every so often.

I've had to discover for myself:

Good maintenance really is the key.

Hope this helps in advance,

Sandy

P.S.

From a tube system from the main pump. I realize that everyone gets the odd hair or two in the dishwasher. However, I'm guessing that with the caustic highly alkali cleaners people use, the hairs get dissolved and disintegrate.

[spamlet]

I expect you will find, for future reference, that the plastic whirly bits all pull out for cleaning quite easily - ours do - then the holes can be poked out before steeping them in acid. Our local Asian 'delis' sell citric by the kilo, and I find a 20% solution of this is great for cleaning all sorts of things - sprayed on taps/bath etc. Mind u it is a good idea to descale the parts of the m/c you can't get at, your way too.

Once stayed somewhere where the dishwasher stank if it wasn't used every day. Ordinary bleach seemed to get at the parts official cleaners couldn't reach, when used instead of the detergent, and did eventually get rid of the stink.

S

[HeyBub]

Add TSP to the dishwashing powder.

[Steve Barker]

And white vinegar to the load, preferably at rinse time if you're so inclined to watch it. (one cup)

[Attila.Iskander]

What's TSP ?

[N8N]

Trisodium Phosphate, useta be a common ingredient in detergents, and also sold in powder form for paint-prep cleanup. Works really well. Unfortunately, being a phosphate, it acts as a fertilizer when it gets into waterways, so it is banned in many areas (like mine.) Unfortunately, a suitable replacement has yet to be found, so laundry and washing dishes is more challenging these days.

nate

[tom]

[Erik]

More here:

Erik

[notbob]

Yep. I think Spic n' Span use to be mostly TSP. I was not aware of the pollution issue, though. It was still available at Och Sply H/W stores last I looked, but the price was up by a factor of 15X. The same box I used to buy for less than a dollar now costs closer the $15!!

nb

[Norminn]

[Harry K]

Iuse the tablets. How would I go about adding TSP to the machine and how much per dose?

Harry K

[tom]

Iuse the tablets. How would I go about adding TSP to the machine and how much per dose?

I put about half a teaspoon on the liquid dishwashing soap I use and it makes a notable difference.