A while ago our dishwasher door quit going down smoothly when the spring on the right seemed to have broken. Then it got worse last week when the left spring seemed to have gone.
I backed out four screws and was able to slide / roll (back wheels) the dishwasher out half way. The electric cable prevented it from coming out any further, but that gave me enough access to see and get to the door springs.
The heavy-duty metal springs were fine. Instead, the “hinge cable” broke on the right and the “tension wheel” slipped on the left. The cable is no cable at all. It’s a small, thin braided rope clamped with plastic hook/loop things on the ends. I can’t believe they even last 10 pulls under tension.
In the attached photo, the rope slipped out of the hinge hook on the right. The tension wheel has a plastic peg (on back in this photo) that sits in a hole in the frame. The peg bent under pressure and will not stay in place.
I feel ridiculous ordering the replacement parts because they seem so poorly engineered. If I was a *real* engineer, I’d rebuild using galvanized cables and pulleys. But I’m not. $25.71 with shipping from RepairClinic.com.
Helpful video by Steve at PartSelect.
Our model is KitchenAid KUDL02FRSS0. Whirpool has the same model number.
All fixed. Notes to future self: Power line only allows cabinet to slide out about 2/5ths of the way. Enough to get to springs. Would have to disconnect power line to fully remove. Power through center of floor. There are 3 tension positions. I put it on least tension, wondering if prior breaks happened because the pulleys were set on highest tension. Door floats down fine. The pulleys and cable ends were not identical, but seem to work better. Had to reuse original screw to hold lower wheel in place. Odd that it did not ship with a screw… although now that I think about it, perhaps the screw in the upper wheel didn’t really need to be there since it had a plastic lock peg. Who knows. Kept some working old parts in case a wheel or rope breaks again.
Thanks for the help and the link the video. I got the dishwasher out and had no idea how the cords were supposed to be routed – both sides broken.
pete.