How to Troubleshoot & Replace Whirlpool AP6783992 / W11259785 Track, Assembly (Lh)

The rails are high-end ball bearing style but apparently wear out over time. Ordered both right and left rails even though only one had worn out - figures the other would go soon and the incremental labor and $ was small. Had to pull dishwasher out to access rack rail mounting screws that go from outside of tub to inside. Only took 20 or so minutes to 1. undo screws holding top of dishwasher in place to underside of counter 2.lower front leg adjusting legs so dishwasher could roll out 3. Roll out dishwasher 4. Remove top rack from rails following instructions in user guide 5. Replace rails via 4 bolts/screws holding rails in place on each side 6. Put dishwasher back in place and return legs and screws holding dishwasher in proper position 7. Put top rack back into rails Works like new again! 

Apparently this is a wear out item - there is a retaining strip in the track that holds the ball bearings in and it will fail over time, releasing a small army of ball bearings into your dishwasher. Not a great design, IMHO, but easily fixed. Required me to pull the dishwasher cabinet out of the opening and access the fasteners from the outside - literally a 10 minute job. 1 out of 5 wrenches on the difficulty scale. If you can hang a picture without smashing your thumbs or breaking your picture frame you can handle this replacement. 

Easy project. 6-year-old appliance. If one is failing replace all 4. The plastic race that holds the bearings becomes brittle and breaks dropping the bearings into the dishwasher tub. Total project time from assembling tools, protecting the hardwood floor, removal, and installation was less than 2 hours. 1) Turn off power to the appliance. 2) Remove 2 mounting Phillips screws holding dishwasher in the cabinet. 2) use a 1/4” nut driver to remove the 2 screws holding the bottom plate from the front of the appliance. 3) Use a 3/4 open wrench to lower the front 2 leveling feet to allow the appliance to be slightly lifted and rolled out. 4) Before completely rolling the appliance the water input probably needs to be removed. It is located front left and is accessible from the front once the bottom plate is removed. Then fully remove the appliance from cabinet. 5) Pop the sound blanket fasteners out of the frame. They are located 1 each side at. side bottom. 6) Remove the racks from the appliance 7) Remove the rails (2) screws per rail top and bottom. Pay attention to the top/bottom orientation while removing. I use a 5/16” nut driver. 8) Install new rails. 9) Reverse above steps. 

Order new roller arms on line (paid extra for express shipping but ordered late; arrived in two days) and installed them. I Googled instructions and saw u-tube video for simple installation instructions ( highly recommend viewing video). I had to unattached dishwasher (2 screws on top) and lower bottom leveling nuts to slide dishwasher out of cabinet. Carefully removed side insulations and screwed out holding screws to remove each of the two roller arm brackets. On right side, I had to remove vent arm duct by unscrewing retaining nut from inside dishwasher (see u-tube video). Reinstallation was very easy and new arms work better then the old ones. 

Appliance parts pro is the way to go. Ordered the slides Friday late morning choosing standard shipping and they arrived Saturday after lunch, a day and a couple of hours! Plus they were $15 less per slide than the KitchenAid site. Only had to slide dishwasher out half way to access the 2 screws on each side. Easy off and easy on, repair took about 20 minutes including putting the dishwasher back in and re-installing the top rack. 

Disconnected the dish washer, pulled it out, unscrewed the tracks, screwed in the new tracks, put the dish washer back in, reconnected the dish washer. 

I replaced the slides with parts from AppliancepartsPros. The parts arrived very fast and installed in minutes fixing the dishwasher. 

You must pull the dishwasher out from underneath the cabinet in order to get to the exterior sides where the screws are that hold the tracks in place. 

Replaced with new slide. 

I ordered the left and right tracks expecting the other track to fail in the near future. I read some other comments on how they fixed it and it was relatively easy. Some of the other plastic parts were also brittle and when I depressed the latch that holds the track in place it easily broke off. Both sides did this. However this did not impact the repair that much as the weight of the drain rack holds it in place. If I'd had known I would have ordered these parts also.