MDB7160AWQ 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 bottom rack was easiest, just picked it up out of the dishwasher and moved the sprayer and the silverware holder from the old rack to the new rack and set it back in the dishwasher. The top rack was a little tricky, it took a minute to figure out to remove the little end-caps on the runners and then it just slid out. Slid the new one in, replaced the caps and moved the upper rack basket. It took less than 15 minutes to fix and now it's like a brand new dishwasher!

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.

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 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.

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.




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First I switched off the "Dishwasher" electrical breaker. I then removed the 7 screws holding the door panel together and lifted the inside panel, exposing the control assembly. I took a digital photo to document the wiring connections then pulled away the two clear plastic protective sheets and unscrewed the control assembly (two screws) then disconnected all wiring. To make access easier I also removed the door latch assembly held by one screw. I removed the control assembly and reversed the process to install the new part. Voilà! It worked!

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.

I had two problems with the dishwasher. The top basket was loose, but the main problem was a plastic part inside the bottom assembly.

The part was backordered, so I re-ordered it through Sears. They said it would arrive in two days. Theirs came in two weeks, and their customer service was terrible.

Your "backordered" part came in two days, even before it was supposed to come had the part not been back ordered. I am delighted with your customer service and your company.

The illustrations on your website were excellent. They helped us not only to identify the part, but to diagnose the problem.

This was my first purchase through your company and if I ever need parts again, there is absolutely no reason to go anywhere else.

You have an excellent company, and great website! I bookmarked your page for future purchases.

I took the bottom cover off and pulled off 2 wires and removed 2 plastic nuts. I removed the old part and removed the O rings from the old part and installed the new heating element. Replaced the plastic nuts and the two wires. It was very simple. The hardest part was lying on my back to get to the wires and nuts.

Read the experiences here, very helpful. Bottom slides out first - really easy. The new part comes with rollers, you don't need to remove the old ones. Now the only problem, getting the sprayer off the bottom basket. Look carefullty, you must use a screwdriver to release one side of the sprayer, then it works off easily. Make sure you note the orientation of the base of the sprayer. Reverse steps above and you are done. New tray slides in. Our new tray was a bit wider than the old one so we needed to use a bit of pressure to "shrink" the back just a wee bit.

The upper is easy also. Since the rails are uneven, make sure you put the high rollers on the high side no matter what your wife told about how it is supposed to go in. The end caps snap inward and slide out of the rails. Easy once you know. The uneven rails are obvious once you notice. Total time was 45 minuts, 30 of which was figuring out how to get the sprayer off without damage.

Would be nice to know the factory recommendation for removing the sprayer.

The upper washer arm can be removed by just snapping it out of place. Just take a screw driver and put in underneath the spray arm and pry it out of its socket. It will just snap out its place. Sometimes this retainer will break so make sure you have this retainer before trying to remove the upper spary arm. I removed the spray arm and back flushed it out with a garden hose to get the debri out of the washer arm. The holes are all clean now. Washes much better now. To put in back on just put the washer arm back where it goes and then just snap the clip back in its hole. Pretty easy fix.