Dishwasher spray arm W10849471 - is this fixable?

[reezekeys]

Hi, I'm back still working on a leak in my dishwasher (Kenmore 66513543N411) despite saying I was "throwing in the towel" in the long thread detailing my fruitless (so far) efforts to fix it. I had the light bulb go on and am guessing that since I replaced both the main door seal and bottom seal (with the help of Vance, thanks again!) it could be a bad spray arm – and one of Vance's early posts in that thread said " Looks like water is being sprayed at door bottom from a leak or split spray arm." A video I posted at the time now is making sense - you see water splash out the bottom when the cycle starts and the arm starts spinning. At the time, I took the arm out and examined it but saw nothing obvious so I moved on to the seals. Recently I looked again and saw what looks like a split in a small seal that sits between the two halves of the arm:

I've tried ordering a new arm but everybody is OOS on this one. I was wondering if the experts thought that 1) this could be the cause of my leak, and 2) there's any way to fix this, even temporarily – silicone caulk that spot maybe? It seems like the two halves of the arm are glued, am I right about this? I'm happy to buy a new arm if there are any out there, but I've searched the net and nobody has stock. Thanks for any help!

[isaac]

There are not really repairable however you can try some epoxy might work,  good luck

[reezekeys]

Epoxy is a good idea, thanks! I had the feeling there was no way to get this apart.

I don't know if this part is not made anymore or the oos situation is only temporary. I don't see them anywhere.

[Budget Appliance Repair]

Looks to be only around six of these left around the country:
Sundberg Appliance Parts Chicago, IL 800-972-8811 (Show one left @ BILLINGS, MT branch), this is a wholesaler don't know if they will sell to you at retail.

Tribles 800-874-2537 (Shows 5 left at multiple branches), Another Wholesaler, may sale at retail over phone.
https://www.tribles.com/parts/FSPW10849471
BIRMINGHAM 1
MACON 1
WHITE MARSH 1 (Pickup only from this location)
COLUMBIA 1
ALEXANDRIA 1 (Pickup only from this location)

None available from Whirlpool factory right now.

None to be found on Ebay or Amazon.

[reezekeys]

Willie, you're a godsend - Tribles didn't show up on any search I made. I just ordered from the Macon store. The salesperson looked up this part on the Whirpool website and told me they weren't shipping any more until November 20.

Thanks again. I hope this fixes the leak! I put a pan under the front of the dishwasher every night so at least we can still use it.

[reezekeys]

The new spray arm fixed my leak. That ends a one-month adventure and fishing expedition that I'm guessing any pro would have diagnosed and corrected in five minutes. In a nicely ironic touch, the spray arm is of course one of the easiest parts to replace, needing no tools and about ten seconds to replace.

I did learn quite a bit about how my dishwasher is constructed, and having a new door seal and lower seal is not a bad thing – the originals were crusted with hard water & detergent deposits. Where those seals were attached, I wound up using steel wool to clean up the stainless as best I could because a lot of that stuff was not coming off easily. I will now regularly use the "Glisten" machine cleaning product and watch for any more deterioration. If we had more money in the bank I would consider a water softening system for our house but that probably won't happen, not in the immediate future anyway.

I'll add one more thing in my lame defense - the bad spray arm passed my visual inspection way back when Vance mentioned it as a possible culprit. The "fix it yourself" youtubes tell you to look for an crack or split in this piece and I didn't see one. On another more recent inspection I caught what I took a picture of and posted in this thread's original post – a tiny piece of a very thin gasket-like "thread" protruding maybe an inch. If any other amateur like me ever stumbles on this thread, take this as a piece of advice – a defective spray arm may look OK when it isn't.

Thanks again to the generous folks here that got me through this and endured my long posts (of which this is one, sorry!) and pictures. Especially to Vance, and Willie above, who steered me to one of the only places in the entire USA that had stock of this part right now! You guys are the best.