Kenwood dishwasher fun (KDW12ST3A): Part Two

Righty.

I've bought a new heater element. It's not a Kenwood part but then again, neither is the original! Having studied the heater on my dishwasher, I decided that there is one factory somewhere churning out dishwasher heater elements for all the dishwasher manufacturers. So, whereas the "approved part" comes in at about £70, an identical (and presumably non-approved part) cost me £18. The pictures below compare the original part with the one that cost me £18. The new part is the shiny one. Apart from the gleam, it looks identical to the original.

I bought the new part from"bartyspares" on Amazon. The part is listed for a Beko but will probably replace the 1800w element on any dishwasher.

So, on to fitting. This was quite easy with the back panel removed. I had to cut the old clips off as they are the non-reusable sort. Disconnect the three wires and then remove the old heater. The new one goes in its place, re-attach the wires and connect the rubber tube on each end. I've used 30mm - 40mm jubilee clips for this and have now hit a snag. The clips I've got are too wide. Even fully tightened, the force of the water passing through the element is forcing the rubber tubes off (at both ends). This means that water is spilling into the bottom of the machine and setting off the flood sensor. The flood sensor - which manifests itself as a series of beeps and an E4 error on the display - basically shuts the machine down apart from the drain pump. This means I do not yet know whether my new heater has solved the original problem of the water not being heated; the machine just doesn't run long enough before the E4 to be able to tell.

Needless to say, I'll be buying some thinner jubilee clips at some point. Until then, I'll continue washing my dishes in the sink. Grrr....

In this last picture you can see the new heater fitted with the new jubilee clips which are too wide.

More soon, no doubt....

D

Mondeo ST24 - MOT work: Part Two

Well, today I fitted the new wishbones. I'm not going to do a step by step guide because

• one already exists on TalkFord; and
• I am absolutely shattered

I will make a couple of observations though. I did the right-hand side first. Now, since my car has an annoying habit of slackening-off the oil filter with the result that the whole right-hand underside of the car has a constant and liberal coating of oil, it took about 10 minutes to get the old wishbone off. Putting the new one on took a bit longer, and having bolted everything up I noticed that a bearing from the CV joint had come dislodged at some point (meaning I had to pop the ball joint out, pull the CV shaft and boot back and re-site the bearing). Nonetheless, I was quite pleased with my progress.

As far as the left-hand side goes, everything was very dry and difficult to remove. The bolt through the bush under the gearbox (which was, helpfully, in upside down) took the best part of 20 minutes to remove - I had to use my breaker-bar for the whole process, a quarter turn at a time. I cannot believe how tight it was, or that the bolt itself did not snap. Fitting the new wishbone was also difficult. I think the whoever did the job previously must have over-tightened everything because the "slots" were just too small to take the new part. After a lot of dicking about I managed to open them up a bit. Once I'd done that the new wishbone was on and bolted up in about 5 minutes.

The hard work was worth it though - the car feels absolutely fantastic now. It's strange how things go off so slowly that it is hardly noticeable. And then when the new parts go on, it is so apparent how bad the old ones were. I did take a few pics, mainly for comparison purposes. The old wishbones really were shot - the bushes were perished and soft. The ball joints were totally slack. They have been on a while though - they were new when I bought the car four years and 40,000 miles ago....

On Tuesday I'll be fitting new rear discs and pads, and the new caliper.

More soon!

D

Mondeo ST24 - MOT work: Part One

My ST24 Mondeo failed its MOT last week. Nothing major - it needs front wishbones, a rear brake caliper and the driver's seat needs sorting. I'm not sure what's wrong with seat but I plan on sorting all the jobs out over the weekend, ready for the re-test next week. I'll take a few photos whilst I'm doing the work in case anyone is interested. In the meantime, I thought I'd post a few pictures of the new (reconditioned) caliper. I got this from an auto-factor on ebay and it cost me £60 including delivery, which seems to be a good price. I've also got new rear discs and pads to go on. I'd bought these to fit last year but couldn't get the caliper retaining bracket off. This time I've got some better tools and am hopeful I can complete the job :)

More soon, no doubt :)

D

Kenwood dishwasher fun (KDW12ST3A): Part One

I bought my Kenwood KDW12ST3A dishwasher from Currys about 8 years ago. If memory serves, it cost £219 in the sale.

I bought it because my Candy dishwasher had exploded a few days earlier and I was desperate to replace it (and for that you can read that the pile of unwashed crockery in the kitchen sink was beginning to hum). The Kenwood was/is stainless steel and looked really nice in the corner of my kitchen. It was a few years later that I came across a bunch of reviews on the internet and the general view was that this dishwasher was a cheap-shit piece of chinese tat that was undeserving of the Kenwood brand. Many people had many problems with this machine. Alas, this had not been my experience and my dishwasher ran without fault for 8 years. And then a couple of months ago the fun started.

The first problem was an evident overheat - at the end of a particular wash cycle the contents of the dishwasher were roasting hot. At the next use the main circulation pump refused to run and so the dishwasher returned an error. For the first time ever, I took my dishwasher apart. At this stage, all I wanted to do was take a look inside. So far as the pump goes, it is a fairly simple motor arrangement. I was able to attach a screwdriver to the end of the pump's main shaft and discovered that the pump was jammed. I imagine it was some detritus or something, because I managed to free it by gently turning the shaft back and forth. I also noticed that the large starter capacitor on the pump was looking out of shape so I removed it and using my ESR meter, established it was toast. I ordered a new cap from CPC (a "Ducati 4.16.10.08.64", CPC part CA05818), and once fitted, and with the pump removed, cleaned, and re-installed, the dishwasher was up and running again. That was in June.

Fast-forward to the end of July and the second problem manifests itself. I don't know whether this was connected to the first problem but the dishwasher was failing to heat - the water inside was stone cold - and was returning an "E3" error. According to the manual, the E3 is a failure to heat and could be caused by a number of things including broken thermostat or broken heater. Some research on the internet also points to a possible broken control board or broken pressure safety switch.

First check was on the heater. Apparently, if the heater reads 29 - 31ohms resistance across its terminals, it's fine. Mine was fine. So, there being basically no information about the thermostat in this machine, I just replaced it (espares part ES1560613). This made no difference at all. I then looked at the pressure switch. This seemed OK and I was going to leave it bearing in mind the cost of a replacement (espares part ES1560552) but having actually inspected the device, I discovered that the only moving part was the microswitch inside it. The switch is an Omron D3V-16-3C5 and can be bought from Farnell for about 65p. Here's a few photos of the part in situ, and replacing the old switch with the new one. Needless to say, it made no difference....

So, what next? I took the front door apart to gain access to the control board. I've added some photos of this below. What I was looking for was signs of overheating in the board, My logic was that if the board is faulty, it might not be switching the heater on. Now, there was some evidence of overheating on the main switchboard, but the board with the relays on it looked fine. Whilst the door was off I took the opportunity to check continuity in all the wiring and it was all fine. So, I took the plunge and bought a new control board set. These are hard-wired together so its a case of all or nothing (espares part ES1551964). Now, this wasn't cheap but I'm still a long way off the cost of buying a new dishwasher. When the part arrived today I was hopeful.

Here are some photos of the removal process. To get at the little board that lives near the on/off switch, the actual door handle must be removed (unscrew the two machine screws that I've highlighted, so that the plastic tray which contains everything can be slid down the inside of the door).

The next pictures compare the new parts with the old. The old part in each image is on top. Interesting date codes on some of the PCBs...

 And now it's all back together it's still not working properly. I'm still getting the E3 error but the water is being heated a little. It's far from hot (hence the E3), but it is noticeably tepid. What is going on? I'm going to have a think about my next move.

More soon, no doubt...

D

Too many friends? Eat this.

First off, I can't take any credit for this recipe which is very similar to something that Jon Favreau cooked in his brilliant movie "Chef". No doubt its a common enough recipe beyond that. Here, I've just added a bit of salami and some bits of fresh tomato but the basic premise is the same - lots of olive oil, garlic, chilli and parsley - with some cooked pasta stirred through it. I'm also conscious that:

• the main substance of this post is a recipe rather than a repair or fix of something; and
• I've not posted a repair or fix of something on this page for about a year

The main reasons for that are:

• I was describing this recipe to someone the other day and they asked me to send the details. Putting the recipe on here seemed the more logical thing to do; and
• I've not successfully repaired or fixed anything for about a year

Anyway, if you fancy making this for your tea, it is really is very simple.

Ingredients (serves one (or two as a starter)):

• Lots of garlic chopped length ways, not crushed or diced
• Salami (done in a sort of julienne)
• Dried chilli flakes (I like it hot so about a tablespoon)
• About four baby plum tomatoes (chopped into quarters lengthways)
• A good handful of chopped fresh parsley ( I prefer the curly variety but any will do)
• An obscene amount of good olive oil (I use EV)
• Whatever pasta floats your boat (I used bronze-die penne because its great at holding the oil)

Method:

Get the ingredients ready. If you're using dried pasta, you can do all the chopping whilst bringing the water for the pasta to the boil.

Assuming that your pasta is going to take about 8 minutes to cook, you want to be adding the chopped garlic to a frying pan with the olive oil just before adding the pasta to the boiling water. The oil in the pan should be hot but not smoking.

Allow the garlic to sizzle for a minute or two until it starts to colour. At this point, turn the heat right down and add the salami and chilli flakes.

Resist the temptation to stir. For the next five minutes the contents of the frying pan should barely sizzle. It's more like a steep than a fry. All the while though, the heat in the pan will be turning that garlic into something that is soft, sweet and mellow.

About two minutes before the pasta is ready, turn the frying pan heat up a bit and add the tomatoes. Again, do not stir. And again, you do not want much of a sizzle - really, all you are doing is warming the tomatoes through rather than cooking them.

When the pasta is ready, drain it properly. But before you do that, add all the parsley to the frying pan and turn the heat up. By the time you've drained the pasta, the contents of the frying pan should be sizzling.

Turn the heat off as you add the drained pasta to the frying pan. Stir a bit and then serve immediately.

Have a bread roll handy for mopping up any spare oil.

Avoid interacting with people for at least two days after consuming this meal. You'll stink if you put the correct amount of garlic in :)

Enjoy

D...