Happy Anniversary, Time For Cussing!

After nearly 5 years in the house...got to do some quality cussing at the previous homeowners again today, yay!

The dishwasher, built in 1983 and here when we moved in, has been doing a lackluster job lately, and running vinegar through it and attacking it with a toothbrush and cleaning supplies didn't help this time.

Like, at all.

Going spelunking into the depths of the thing armed with a mirror and flashlight, I discovered that the three spray arms were looking gunky...like seriously gunky.

Like, 34 years worth of gunky. Terrific, previous owners never cleaned them.  I warm up my favorite cuss words.

So, away to the Internet I fly, to find the tech manual for my ol' GE dishwasher, because what I don't want to do is break off some 34 year old, impossible to find, no-doubt-brittle-as-an-old-ladies-bones vital plastic piece that holds the thing together.  The owner's manual, as typical for major appliances and cars, is useless when it comes to this stuff--it's gotta be the tech manual.

Success, I find it!
Uh huh.  As I suspect, the two end caps on the drawer slide that stop the upper rack from being yanked out of the thing require a specific way of removal, and are fussy and easily broken when new--never mind their dubious condition after 34 years.

When I return to the kitchen to inspect mine, to my delight and complete lack of surprise the fussy tabs have been already broken and just crammed back into position by previous owners, whee! Just getting started and this project is already fun! I get that familiar sinking feeling when dealing with anything the previous owners of this place inflicted on this poor house.

I read through the tech manual and further find that the upper rack MUST come out in order for me to be able to clean the middle spray arm as thoroughly as it needs.  What the hell, the end caps are already broken, so after carefully attacking the things with a screwdriver and some choice swear words they come out, huzzah.

At this point I decide to be smart, quit while I'm ahead and not take the spray arm off the rack--every single inch of plastic inside this ancient dishwasher is brittle and begging to break if I look at it wrong, and won't take the amount of enthusiastic twisting and pulling that removing the spray arm demands. I take the upper rack out and one of the wheels falls off--intact thank God, but the post it mounts to is pretty sad looking and shedding bits of plastic. Into the kitchen sink the upper rack goes, spray arm and all.

Armed with a mirror and flashlight, I inspect the spray arm, which hasn't been spraying lately...

And Jesus take the wheel, the thing is horrifically disgusting--caked with 34 years worth of calcified, fossilized crap that seems to be mostly hardened detergent and calcium deposits.  What follows is a solid hour of scraping, chiseling gunk out of the holes in the spray arm, rinsing it out, having it vomit up more hardened crap, prying & picking it out, rinse...repeat...

This nonsense goes on for quite some time. Eventually I find an actual small chunk of broken glass, which I think started it all way back whenever by causing a blockage that the fossilized crap cheerfully built on, and manage to pry it out of the spray arm's innards.  This is where I really break out the $2 cuss words and verbally cast doubt on the previous owner's parentage. Finally--joy, the thing allows water to run through it again!

One down, two more to go.

Both of those two require serious acrobatics to clean, haha. The top arm can safely be removed, thank heavens, with the aid of the mirror and flashlight combo again and only minor contortions, and is degunked in the sink after many minutes of chiseling/prying deposits out.  The bottom spray arms decides to be the fly in the ointment and resists all attempts at removal.  I'm loath to break the thing and turn this project into even more of a circus, so I leave it where it sits and instead take a deep breath and dive it to clean it in place.

After all this comes the easy part--basic dishwasher scrubdown and cleaning, which I've been doing all along since we moved in, so at least that part goes quickly. To my relief the fussy tabs meekly go back into position and hold in place with only minimal growling on my part but maximum 'Screw-you-just-get-IN-there' determination.

Now to push the button and run the thing on a rinse cycle so see how it fares...

And to wait for the other shoe to drop tomorrow when I'm wondering why all my muscles are so weirdly sore.