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Hi Richappy! The top rack of my dishwasher is not cleaning, so I disassembled to the chopper. When I took my chopper assembly apart and I did find the little plastic white end of the plastic piece that holds the screen and the blade together was broke off. My question is: Is the white plastic part with the small spring on it that holds the chopper and the screen together the main pump impeller ? If so, can this be why my top rack is not washing properly? And why do I have to pull my dishwasher out as you stated below ?
If your chopper is clogged, you need to replace this plus the check valve next to it in the housing. Inspect the chopper, if the white plastic end is badly worn, you also have to replace the main pump impeller, this requires pulling out the dishwasher
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Changing to crystals had little effect. I will clean out the chopper filter tomorrow and check the inlet valve; see if that solves my problem. If that doesn't work, I'll call the APP chat people. Thanks to denman for his suggestions.
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It is always best to remove power from an appliance when working on it.
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Hi -
Just wondering if there are any electrical risks if I just start opening the bottom spinner apart - to get to the chopper.
Thanks for all the great advice!
june
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I had this same problem. It was suggested by appliancepartspros.com to replace the chopper assembly for $20. I was sure it needed the recirculating pump for $160. I went with their suggestion and sure enough that fixed it. Their video online walked my 14 year old through the process and he did the whole job by himself. Thank you!
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I realize this is an old thread, but it sounds relevant to my KUDS301XWH4 (which has had four repairs in its first 18 months, this will be #5). How do you get the bottom spinner off to get to the grinder? Oops, never mind, found that. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ho...pair/Chopper_Replacement Thank you for posting this solution, which I would not have thought of myself. I will probably be ordering a new chopper from you soon! Update: the chopper was in good shape but totally covered in food. Apparently, the design doesn't so much chop food as grind it into the mesh so it won't be dislodged. Real nice. Guess I'll order a new chopper just in case... since this seems to be a common repair. One thing I found hard was getting the chopper back in. The advice of sticking a crescent wrench in worked, but what confused me was that there are two places the screen can go, an inner and outer ring. The inner ring is obvious and I have no idea why it's there because the screen actually goes into the outer ring. In addition, you have to know that the "smaller" part of the circle in the mesh goes into the LOWER part of the ring. Once you get it exactly right, everything else is easy, but re-assembling just that one bit took me 15-20 awkward minutes, about the same as the rest of the job combined.
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Originally Posted by: aquaria  I took my dishwasher apart and found a piece of hard plastic jammed in the cover over the chopper. Then I pulled the chopper out to clean the screen. It wasn't bad. Now I can't put it back in! Is there a trick to getting this screen back in and getting the blade on the gear properly? Take the open end of a 1/2 wrench and insert between the screen and the impeller. This will hold the chopper shaft out far enough to slide the screen back into the slot. when you pull the wrench out, the shaft will slide back and engage with the motor coupling.
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I'm trying to get the bottom screen off, but there is a screw underneath the square plastic "tube" where the water flows up to the upper rack. Anyone know how to get that plastic tube off so I can get to the screw? The screen won't budge unless the screw is removed.:confused:
Well, I had to completely remove the square tubing for the upper rack to get that one tube off the bottom. I went ahead and removed everything and cleaned it all out. Sure enough, the channels leading to the chopper blade were blocked with food. There are about 5 channels that all converge into one which causes a bottleneck effect. Why they designed it this way, I don't know. The screen for the chopper was completely clean.
We'll see how it goes!
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I was stressing about this dishwasher needing work done.. Once I found this post, and cross-referenced with part catalog on kitchenaid site (specific for my model) I was able to disassemble, clean and put back together. I am VERY not "handyman type" and I managed and it resolved the issue! Thx for saving me probably at least $100 guys!
I had no idea this could be it, and yet, I found hair, string, toothpicks, few bones and other stuff stuck there! Took me a while, but got it all out and the dishwasher washed like new!
I do not have much faith in stuff on the internet quite often, but this worked out like a charm! Than you all, again!
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The job aid for this dishwasher shows that the chopper is turned by the motor and chops the food particles small enough for most of the food particles to be flushed down the drain when the drain pump turns on. This happens when the check valve opens and the suction sucks everything off the screen.
If the screen is clogged, either the check valve is bad ( rather rare), or the chopper is busted and no longer turns when the main sidewinder pump runs. Soap residue can also clog the screen.
Hope this explains everything.
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