Do-It-Yourself Story

I actually thought I was going to have to replace the compactor when the ram got stuck in the down position. I couldn't get the drawer to open and the motor was smoking if I turned it on for too long. So before I placed the order, $1,200 by the way for a new one, I did some research and came across the videos from Appliance Parts Pros. The first one showed me how to manually move the ram to the up position and the second, how to remove the bottom cover and inspect what was going on. I removed the bottom cover and found the drive gear had broken in half. I manually moved the ram to the up position and just followed the videos to remove the drawer and then the ram. I ordered the Drive Gear Kit and the Power Nut Kit (you need two) and received the parts to fix it and guess what? They all worked like a charm! Now, before I ordered the parts, I did some research and saw that I could have ordered the parts elsewhere and saved a few dollars but none of those suppliers had videos to tell me how to do the repairs. So I went with APP because they invested the time to make the videos that made the repairs easy to do. One thing - compactors are heavy so I spent more time taking the thing apart than doing the actual repair. Thanks guys for saving me over $1,000.