MDB4100AWW Maytag Dishwasher - Instructions

float was missing palnut and letting the float slide up too much causing small leak around the float

We were happy to find the basket we needed listed on your website, even after we could not find it on the Maytag site. It was perfect. I can't believe we lasted almost 2 years with the broken basket we had.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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!

Diagnosed potential problem from scematic diagram found at Parts Select .Com by entering model #. It was very likely the inlet water solenoid. Tear down was simple: Turn off water, disconnect water lines to and from solenoid, disconnect two electric terminals and remove part by removing two screws from dishwasher chasis. Before you buy the new solenoid, unscrew the water inlet elbow from solenoid and check the filter/screen inside the solenoid to make sure it isn't clogged. Assuming it's not, order the replacement part and reinstall in reverse order. Be sure to use plumber's tape on screw connections to make sure there are no leaks..... Also for ease of acces, you'll need to turn the dishwaher down on it's front. Put towels down to cushion the front and keep the controls from contact with the floor. Good luck!!

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.