Maytag Dishwasher MDBH970 Fills But Doesn’t Clean the Dishwashes

You know the story: you load up your Maytag dishwasher, start the cycle and it fills ok, but it just doesn’t sound like it’s doing any serious dishwashing. In fact, when you open the door at the end of the cycle, all your dishes still have chunks of spam and bits of spinach stuck all over ‘em.

So, being a DIY kinda grasshopper, you verify that the motor runs. Now what’s a grasshopper to do?

Look very closely at the wash motor shaft extension on your dishwasher. You’ll need to disassemble from the spray arm downward to get to it. Click the parts diagram shown here for a larger, annotated view of the guts. A plastic shaft extension was installed from the factory. If something too hard got caught in the cutter that mounts onto this extension, that plastic shaft extension strips out. When you remove the shaft extension from the motor shaft you will likely see stripped out threads from the extension left on the motor shaft. Replace the shaft extension, seal kit, and cutter with the new improved parts kit. Then you should hear that old familiar sound of your dishes being blasted clean.