Do-It-Yourself Story

Since my Samsung Dishwasher would not drain and had a flashing quick light, I removed the racks and both spray wands. Which allowed me to remove the lower screen assembly. This revealed a worn and broken check valve and broken grinder blade. I cleaned the inside of the dishwasher and removed the unit from under the counter. I removed and cleaned the brake assembly ( large transparent plastic section on left side of the dishwasher). I cleaned this for preventive maintenance by taking the float assembly off and flushing it with bleach water solution then rinsing and soaking it with with vinegar while running a thin mechanics wire through the stuck gunk in the vent tube. To get the brake assembly clean I also had to use a garden hose to flush water forward and back but finally I got it clean if the new part wasn’t 100 buck I would have just replaced it because it was the hardest part of the repair. I only found a small section of the check valve inside the dishwasher screen area the rest of it broke off got tangled in the grinder blade breaking it then washed down through the drain pump and was stuck in the hose causing the no drain. I still could not find all of the check valve pieces so I removed the pump assembly thinking I would be able to reinstall the old one. Yet the o ring was swollen and would not go back in place without leaking while I was testing the unit. So I ordered a new drain pump, new grinder blade, new o ring for the water tube for the upper spray wand and upper rack wand. It was also swollen. The new pump is redesigned where the print fits in a grove yet I am sure if I have to remove it one day the print will need to be replaced yet no one offers just the o ring for the old style or new style pump so do not remove the pump unless you plan on replacing it or sourcing a replacement o ring. I could have searched for any debris in the pump housing with a inspection camera found cheap online compared to buying the pump that was still good. The repair and diagnostics were easy many videos found online which will be helpful to you if needed. Once the dishwasher was tested and working we ran some dishwasher cleaner solution we used to use on a monthly basis but forgot about or got to cheap to do. I think if I had kept up with the cleaning the brake assembly would have stayed cleaner but my check valve would have failed faster. With this in mind I plan on replacing my check valve once a year or installing a inline check valve at the garbage disposal to prevent this from happening again