Opening the Tuna Can Without the Jaws of Life... Access to PBF MBF and GB9 Main Bords

[ScottsApplianceRepar]

I'm not sure where else to put this since there is no site suggestion forum. Another forum that would be a fantastic asset to us all would be a forum specifically for access issues and tricks.

Let's face it, there are only so many ways to make a fridge cool, a dryer dry or a dishwasher wash... but cabinets and covers are another matter. To make matters worse, senior engineers design the crucial systems we all know so well but it's the junior engineers who get stuck designing the cabinets and covers. Even worse is the fact that junior engineers try to impress their bosses by coming up with something new and cool... so each new round of cabinet and cover designs reinvents the wheel, forcing the poor technicians (that would be us) to look like fools as we sit there in front of the customer trying to figure out what the heck little junior Jimmy Engineer was thinking when he hid every catch, latch and screw in his latest absurd creation.

The forum could be searched for the first 3 characters of a model number such as GSS, PSS, MAV, etc. etc.

Here is a real example of how the forum could work, with the promised access info for the main board:

(searchable) Title: MBF, PBF, GB9 Main Board Access

Text: Pull light cover for good measure. Catches are along front edge, in left and right rear corners and there is an upside down T post near the center rear of the cover. Shove cover STRAIGHT back, then drop down. Shove your upper body into the fridge, remove shelves as necessary to get yourself in there. Look backwards towards the customer who is standing behind you and staring at your like you're a lunatic. Look carefully along the ceiling just above where the front edge of the light cover was. You will see two rectangular openings, left and right, that have the openings face the rear of the fridge. Your latches are hooked into the bottom edge of those holes. Your mission, like it or not, is to take a flat blade screwdriver, shove it in the hole, use pressure to keep it along the bottom edge of the hole while it keeps trying to slip upward and off the angled catch edge, push back towards the customer so hard that you're sure that you're going to break the plastic, push a little harder and then the stupid latch will come undone and allow the cover to swing down with the hinged area on the front edge and the opening towards your screwdriver.

Hot tip: Do not curse the stupidity of the engineer while doing this. Your breath comes out in grunts so even if you try to whisper your swearing and ranting voice still carries throughout half the household. Don't ask me how I know this, just nod and believe in the truth of what I say.

Access is everything in our business. You can't fix what you can't reach... and you can't reach it if Little Johnny designed it while trying to win a creativity award that might earn him his super engineer secret decoder ring. From the idiot who brought you unmarked and hidden catch latches to the fool who put three screws over 2" deep in underneath of the Whirlpool front load washers when 95% of them sit in a drain pan and THEN have a dryer mounted on top... from one to the other and all in between the biggest thing real professionals need help with is this:

"How do I get into this *#&@%)#& thing without the JAWS OF LIFE??? Or at least a saws-all!!!!"

How about the geniuses who hide the WP front load book inside, put those screws underneath, put it in a drain pan and then slapped a dryer on top so it's now a 2 man job to uninstall the dryer just to get to the tech sheet.

Even better... I once worked on a double over that had one of the slickest, trickest service modes ever. It was fantastic! You could trigger every single thing in the oven on demand and check it. The engineer who designed that service mode was obviously experienced and did a great job making sure that technicians had all kinds of great troubleshooting tools that could be used from the front controls so that you could test every function in the oven without having to pull it out....

... then some fool in manufacturing took the twelve page tech sheet pouch and taped it to the back of the oven, where it got walled up!!! Did I mention that the listed weight of the oven is 360 pounds? It's on the books as a 3 man install. So you need 3 men to get to the tech sheet that tells you how to use the easy to access diagnostics that were designed to be used from the front of the machine so that anything could be tested without uninstalling the oven!

"Pound head here until blood flows freely..."

So... I think a forum that's all about access would be a godsend for us all. However I think that the first 3 characters of the model need to be in every subject line and there should be a way we can request that subject lines be edited to add more applicable models to each thread rather than rewrite the same instructions for separate model numbers that are basically the same design.

Your thoughts?

Scott

[RegUS_PatOff]

a few of the manufactures (GE, Viking, etc) don't use the first few characters to signify a certain series of models.

and almost all of Bosch's D/W start with SHU

[ScottsApplianceRepar]

All the GE's I've ever seen do but some of the others don't. Luckily for me every Viking I've ever seen has been designed in a way that makes sense.

As far as Bosch dishwashers go, they're easy to get into... just use a hand grenade.

Even my profile says I'm highly allergic to the things. 3 years ago I decided to refuse to work on any Bosch product simply because of access issues. The things are certifiable nightmares.

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

I'm not sure where else to put this since there is no site suggestion forum.

Topic moved to the Suggestion Box Forum

Another forum that would be a fantastic asset to us all would be a forum specifically for access issues and tricks.

Good idea!