Cleaning · 19 of 21
Lower Spray Arm Not Turning
The arm is sitting exactly where you left it after a full cycle, and the wash is patchy.
| What you can see | What it usually is | Whose job |
|---|---|---|
| The arm will not move even by hand with the machine switched off | The seat it spins on is worn or full of grit, so the arm binds instead of running free | Ours |
| It spins beautifully by hand and stays put all through the wash | Too little pressure is arriving at the arm, and that chain starts at the filter and ends at the pump | Yours to check, then ours |
| It goes round in fits and stops in the same spot | Either something low in the rack is catching it, or one side has lost its openings and the push has gone uneven | Yours to reload |
| It turns, but the wash is weak and patchy everywhere | The openings have narrowed enough to lose reach while there is still enough angle left to keep the arm moving | Ours |
Mark the arm with a piece of tape, run a short programme and look again. If the tape has not moved, either the water is no longer pushing hard enough or something is physically in the way, and both are quick to establish. Viking Repair Denver goes through it with you on (303) 729-0972.
There is no motor on a spray arm. The water does the work: it leaves each opening at an angle, and the arm goes round in the opposite direction to the jets, which is why an arm that has stopped is telling you about water pressure and friction and nothing else.
Two faults that look identical through the door
The first is mechanical. The arm sits on a seat, that seat wears, grit collects in it, and eventually the arm is dragging rather than spinning. You can find this one in three seconds with the power off and one finger, and it will feel wrong immediately.
The second is hydraulic. The arm is free, the seat is fine, and there is simply not enough water arriving with enough force to turn it. That points backwards down the water path — a blocked filter, a pump working in deposit, or openings so narrowed that the reaction they produce is no longer strong enough to move the arm they are drilled into.
Why the order of work matters
Doing it in the wrong order costs money. An arm that will not turn under water gets replaced, the new one behaves exactly the same way a fortnight later, and the actual fault was upstream the whole time. So the arm is checked by hand first, the filter and the sump second, and the pump third, and only then does anybody decide what to fit.
Nothing on that list is expensive to look at, which is the point of looking at all of it before ordering any of it.
What to try before anyone drives over
- With the machine off, spin the arm with one finger and let go. It should carry on for most of a turn; a dead stop the moment you release it puts the fault in the seat rather than in the water.
- Take the filter out, wash it clean and make sure it locks back down flat. A filter that is not seated lets grit straight through and takes pressure off everything after it.
- Hold the arm up to a light and look through each opening along it. A chalky ring inside one is deposit, and it lifts out with a thumbnail or a cocktail stick.
- Load the machine the way you normally would, then reach in and swing the arm through a full circle before starting. Whatever it touches is what has been stopping it.
That is as far as it goes without tools. If it is still wrong, call Viking Repair Denver on (303) 729-0972 and say whether the arm keeps turning after you spin it by hand with the machine off — it is usually enough to know which part is coming on the van.
Every symptom, grouped by what you can see Water in, water out, cleaning, power and the door — the whole library on one page.
Clifford Nakamura
- Written
- On the van
- Service technician — controls and intermittent faults
- Years at it
- 22 years in the trade