Pitman arm and Maytag dishwasher

Today we got busy working on the Maytag Quietseries 300 dishwasher that wasn't cleaning all the dishes.  Seemed to get the ones that were rinsed off but not all the ones with lots of food on them.  It use to work fine for putting all that carp through it.  Well I decided to at least see if I could find anything maybe not working.  Should have taken some pictures of this but I only have one when we had it all apart.

We found lots of gunk in it grinder part of the dishwasher as well as the pump area.  On the spinners for the lower and top rack some of the nozzles were clogged with more crap.  Also found glass pieces wedged in there as well as some tiny round rocks?  No idea where they came from.  Haven't run the dishwasher yet but tonight will be the first test drive.  Had to order a couple parts that were broken but we are just ignoring that they are broken right now.  Eric helped a lot with this chore.

Next came the Defender with snow falling.  Eric had it in the garage up on stands to replace the Pitman arm since it didn't look good.  He recently got the parts for this and then had to buy a special Pitman puller that everyone says works every time.  Seems with the regular puller will break before it gives up the pieces.

Well the puller worked like a charm and then just the normal stuff of getting it all apart and cleaned up.  Well to clean it up we had to buy some special cleaner (Stoddard solvent) for his cleaner that he has never used before that was his father in laws.  He's had it for quite a number of years but look fine.  We got 4 gallons of the cleaner and probably should of had 5 gallons.  Had to put the pump into the cleaner to get it to work right instead of on the side where it belongs.  Got it all done and only close to the end did he have some problems the 'C' clamp holding it into the arm didn't seem to want to seat properly.  Finally decided it was really seated OK because the back part of the 'C' clamp was bigger than the front part.  Just looked like it wasn't in right.

Drove Taylor off to swim practice at 3:10.  Picked up Hunter at 3:35 at the pool.  Came back to work on the Defender with Eric.  He was doing all the work and I was supervising.  Hunter called and said she needed a ride to the ballet practice at 5.  The Defender was back in business so we drove it to Ballet practice and went to Walmart to get a new bigger snow shovel.  Then drove back to picked up Taylor from swimming.  He is never real quick about getting out of there.  Got home at 5:35 and called Liesl who was driving home to pick up Hunter from Ballet practice.  Eric got some frozen Mommy soup out and we started it up on the stove.  He also prepared some great red and yellow beets.  Liesl got home had she needed to eat something other than the soup so she fixed up a pound of hamburger and onions and we all sat down for dinner.  Eric had to leave in the snow to go to work at 7pm.   It's been a busy day.