Mixing Dough With A KitchenAid Mixer


 
I may have a broken planetary gear ring, but I will know more when I get the right snap ring pliers.

The planetary gear rotates around the gear ring, freely, until it reaches a certain spot, and then it wants to drag and bump a bit until the gear clears that particular area. Looking back, I may have been a little conservative applying the grease in that area. I'll know more next week.

Here's the part number...

26 9703339 Gear, Internal

https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=_3x7XKnWNs2GsAXS367IBQ&q=9703339&btnK=Google+Search&oq=9703339&gs_l=psy-ab.3...2666.4589..5229...0.0..0.156.286.0j2......0....2j1..gws-wiz.....0.N7p0AMDxuYU

You say these have to be pressed in? How do you remove such a part to begin with?
 
Last edited:
They're easy to replace just a flat screwdriver work your way around it little by little it will come right out. New one just is tapped in gently. I have never seen one of these wear out or break or be damaged in any way. And again been fixing them over 10 years now. My guess is you missed something else. BTW HF has a very nice set of snap ring pliers in this https://www.harborfreight.com/snap-ring-pliers-with-reversible-action-63938.html but they also have this set https://www.harborfreight.com/8-piece-precision-snap-ring-pliers-63841.html and they look nice enough I may actually buy this set for myself
Anyway I digress. I will lay odds either the upper bearing on that main shaft has come out of the upper hear housing or the bearing in the lower gear housing is worn out or has come loose from the lower gear housing. I have seen both issues more often that I care to. I still believe they're due to the crappy grease from OEM and or the REALLY crappy grease someone is out there selling calling it a "repair kit". Another failure I have seen is in the planetary itself. I have seen the beater shaft fail but I have only seen this failure 2 or 3 times. Though one was so bad it beat the lower gear housing so badly it put a hole in it.
I'm working on a deal for one of my good customers and will be getting him (the guy who does really heavy baking for his Viet Now chapter) an 8qt commercial. These have entirely different gear system and bearing system. MUCH MUCH stronger. Rated for heavy continuous use so I am hoping to get that soon for him.
Here are some photos of failure points I have come across all too commonly due to bad grease
First here is the upper gear housing failure. In both case though the lubrication fails and cause the shaft to bind on the bushing and tearing out of the housing(s)
ZkE50dB.jpg

KJQbm04.jpg

This is the lower gear housing. This particular one is OK the issue here is this was a brand new machine that was dropped and broke the lower housing but it illustrates the bearing that fails
nIIAPpu.jpg

RBhKLBL.jpg

That ring gear is brand new and if you should feel you really do need it I would be happy to send it to you but odds are it's not the issue. The gear train on these machines is too small for the power output of the motor. So with the tiniest failure of the lubrication they go to hell in a handbasket in really short order as the main shaft is put under tremendous side loads. White lithium and or the OEM "vegetable?" grease cannot take the huge side loads this shaft goes through and failure happens quickly.
The good news is the lower and upper housings are relatively cheap If either or both of the bearings failed I would get a new main shaft also as you'll find it pretty worn. Hope this helps
 
Thanks for the links!

If there is damage in the planetary area, I may opt for automotive grease (in said area) after the parts are replaced. Not sure if I will repack the transmission housing gears with auto grease just yet though.
 
You should be fine on grease, (maybe just add a little more) as for the planetary area just a few dabs around the ring gear and also on the beater shaft I put a VERY little bit. You don't want too much in that shaft as it will attract flour so literally a very thin film is all it needs. The real trouble culprit is the large shaft in the center. All the gear box stress goes through that shaft so check it very carefully. Odds are you missed damage in there the first tome you took it apart. After rebuilding a number of them you get to know what to look for and can tell immediately. I think the type of your grease will be fine. The issue may be not enough or previous damage you missed
 
In the image below (that you posted), the top of our mixer attachment shaft is striking against the underside of the ring gear housing where the red circle is.

Ring%20gear%20housing.jpg


Upon further investigation, it appears the lower snap ring is wearing a groove in the bottom of the planetary housing. :eek: Their is no indication of a washer in that area, and I cannot see one in the parts list diagram either.

Doesn't sound like a good idea to be using a snap ring without a washer.

I'm afraid this planetary assembly is in need of a replacement. I'll try and post a photo of damaged area soon.

The ring gear looks fine for what it's worth.





UPDATE.........


I found the problem.

The shaft sleeve slipped upward about 1/8" (maybe more), and it caused the top of the shaft to rub against the bottom of the ring gear housing in the area I posted above. I placed the planetary assemble on top of a bench vise and pounded the sleeve back into place with a rubber mallet.

What caused the sleeve to drift upwards? I don't know unless the load was too great for the dough hook to handle.

In light of this, should the planetary assembly be swapped out after all?


Here's a good side-view photo of a new planetary assembly. Notice how the top of the pinion gear is flush with top of the long shaft sleeve. My short shaft sleeve & pinion gear were higher than this before I fixed it.

s-l1600.jpg
 
Last edited:
You need a new planetary. I have seen this failure so bad it beat a hole in the lower gear housing. Other times it was caught doe to customer hearing "knocking" noises. In all the machines I have done I have only seen this failure 2 or 3 times though. Mostly when the planetary fails it simply falls off the main shaft. I see that a lot. BTW using a hammer is not how you fix a machine :D
 
LMichaels said:
You need a new planetary. I have seen this failure so bad it beat a hole in the lower gear housing. Other times it was caught doe to customer hearing "knocking" noises. In all the machines I have done I have only seen this failure 2 or 3 times though. Mostly when the planetary fails it simply falls off the main shaft. I see that a lot.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I guess I'll be looking for a replacement part soon.

I plan to run the machine on a limited basis until the part arrives, but I guess I'll have to use the bread machine to mix dough.

After examining the gears & such, I think the synthetic grease is holding up fairly well. Time will tell though.


LMichaels said:
BTW using a hammer is not how you fix a machine :D
Click to expand...

Yes it is here in the south. :p

A hammer is also known as a redneck crescent wrench too, lol.
 
Len Dennis said:
Remember my percentages :D
Click to expand...


I had somehow overlooked your comment, but I saw this on my Roku device, and it fits in with your advice...



I'm getting better at this, but I haven't re-tried my original recipe yet. Youtube video recipes are a big help too.

Man, check out the dough hook on this monster mixer, lol.
 
Rusty James said:
Is it a bad idea to purchase new parts from fleabay?
Click to expand...

Not really though I do stick with just a couple wholesalers and they also happen to do business on ebay. I stay clear of sellers who's identity I cannot trace back. So typically I buy through places like Seneca River Trading, The Mending Shed and a couple more. There is also a guy I have make me rubber feet as he makes better ones and I buy a whole bag from him for the cost of 2 from KA. This allows me to put new rubber feet on every tilt head I do.
 
Couldn't resist making a batch of dough today (500g of flour), and I payed special attention to the exposed snap ring on the attachment shaft. Mixing dough creates an upward hammering action on the shaft, so I guess that introduces metal fatigue over time. The shaft sleeve did not shift any for what it's worth, but I will be ordering a new planetary soon.

In other news, the inside window on our GE range cracked today. :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
Yeah GE is a company I gave up on long ago for appliances. They are great for jet engines, medical and industrial stuff but I think they've lost their focus for home appliances. On another note, I got an 8qt commercial unit in yesterday. Have to say that thing is "da bomb". Amount of power is off the charts and QUIET beyond belief.
I still have to go through it but I already have it pre-sold to a customer that does all the catering/baking for a local VietNow chapter here. He had bought 2 of the 6qt units from me and although they have enough power to rip your arm off they are not built for the heavy continuous duty this 8qt is made for and that he puts them through. I cannot imagine doing that much baking but he runs those 2 units under VERY heavy full capacity loads almost continuously. He's a great test bed for me. He puts those units in one month through what my normal customer would do in 2 years. Have to say though he hasn't broken them yet though one motor seems like it gave up the ghost so I replaced it under warranty for him. So far so good. Gear trains are holding up though with that teflon based synthetic. Funny, the 8qt is not that much bigger than the 6 and the same attachments work on it (bowls, beaters, whisks and hook) but it's what the 6qt should really be though it's a near $1000 machine! I may have to actually pick up another one for ourselves or maybe it's smaller brother the 7qt machine. Same gear train design but bushings where there might otherwise be bearings, slightly less powerful motor (but same design) 1.5 hp vs 1.75 and not rated for continuous duty. But I think having that quiet performance would be nice.
Have fun!
 
FYI, GE sold their entire home appliance line to Haier (China) a couple of years ago, but the GE brand lives on.
 
Our range was made in 2013, but I had no idea GE had sold out to a foreign brand of late.

I've seen expensive almost brand new Samsung refrigerators on Craigslist for just a few hundred dollars. I do a lot of my own appliance work, and I called a nearby parts place for advice on fixing a Samsung, and they told me Samsung will not let them stock parts. In other words, you have to buy parts direct from Samsung, and they are expensive. Local repair shops won't touch these foreign made appliances either, so the owner is stuck with paying for brand name repairmen and parts.

I'm hanging on to my appliances as long as I can, although I've thought about buying a gas range of late.
 
I have Samsung washer/dryer and even though we are in a smaller metro area there is no issue with repair people doing repairs on Samsung or LG appliances nor with finding parts. Some people are simply using scare tactics to try to talk people into buying things with American names that aren't remotely American i.e. GE, Frigidaire. Thankfully Whirpool is still American owned and built. Of course their sub brands i,e, Amana, JennAir and so on fall under that blanket.
I used to laugh at the so called "American Only" people I would get at the rental car place after I retired from United Airlines. I'd get these people come to the counter. "What kind of car you gonna give me?" Me: "I have a nice new Toyota Camry" "I don't wanna drive any of that foreign s&*t" Give me a Chevy" or that Buick" than I start laughing "You said you want an American made car?" Well that Buick was made in China, the Chevy in Mexico but that Toyota was made in Indiana with American hands and mostly American parts. "Which American car did you want?" Inevitably they 9 out of 10 times said "Oh ok maybe I'll try that Toyota" and when they would come back they would rave about how nice a car and thank you for letting me know.
 
<chuckle> My g/f's family got very decidedly unhappy with me 20 years ago. They were giving her crap for buying a "Japanese piece of <BEEP>!" I pointed out that her Honda Civic (built in Marysville, OH,) had far more domestic content than the Ford F150s they all had sitting out front. I'm driving it now as a summer commuter, and I'll drive it until the wheels fall off.

My g/f & I have a Samsung french door refrigerator that we bought some 4 years ago. Likewise, I had no issue finding a local shop to service it, although it took a number of visits for a complete repair (and getting the right tech to come out and look at it.)
 
LMichaels said:
I have Samsung washer/dryer and even though we are in a smaller metro area there is no issue with repair people doing repairs on Samsung or LG appliances nor with finding parts.
Click to expand...

That's not been the case in these parts, and the after talking to the Craigslist ad owners, they confirmed what our local parts place complained about. Local repair guys will not touch LG or Samsung appliances, and parts are not easy to obtain either.

Good for you anyway.
 
ON another positive note while I cannot speak to LG quality which I think is over rated thanks to the very poor performance and design flaws in my LG range it will be the first and last LG appliance I ever buy. However my Samsung appliances have been pretty flawless. Though I will admit our first Samsung washer worked without a hitch for close to 10 years never needing a thing until the drum support broke loose and because of it's age I was unable to repair it due to lack of availability of the part.
I discovered I was partly responsible for the issue though. We have to use a water softener and I used to have the brine tank sitting next to the washer. Well when you dump bags of salt you throw up a saline cloud and that combined with moist environment ate away the alloy support. So one day while doing wash wife and daughter heard a loud noise. They though a helicopter was landing in the yard. Well the support had busted loose during high speed spin. They went down and found the washer jumping all over the place with smoke billowing out of it due to the burning rubber seal. Was quite the sight. The brine tank is now elsewhere and I have a long hose connecting it to the actual softener.
I had read about people having issues with their water heaters and furnaces due to the exact reason.
If I am still sporting this mortal coil 10 years from now we'll see if moving the tank worked :D
 
Interesting note about the brine tank and furnace. Mine is right beside ours as well and when the bag is dumped in, a lot of salt dust rises up. I instinctively put the lid on quickly to contain the dust because it really dries out the nasal passages quick. Looks like I did it for two reasons :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top