Yet another KA death ... questions on Bosch

[widespreadpizza]

Bradtri,  if I were you,  I would dispute that charge with you CC company.  I have no patience for that BS fixya site,  and its the principal,  not the 20 bucks -marc

[dmcavanagh]

bradti, nice work and thank you for the added input. Too many people shy away from doing a little work for themselves, throw away rather then fix can get expensive and be awful wasteful. Glad to see you rescued your KA and hope this link is used by and inspires others to do the same. My biggest problem with throwing in the towel on a KA is that you lose the ability of all the other attachments you have probably acquired to use with it.

[bradtri]

Marc - good comment and I went to the fixya website to first address it with them.  Interestingly, on their drop-down for their contact form, one of the options was "Cancellation/refund" request ... so I'm guessing they get a regular stream of these.  We'll see what happens.

dmcavanaugh - I agree with you and too often, I seem to have forgotten my farming background where we fixed everything. It's irritating when one attempts to fix something, and then you find out that it has been assembled in a cheap manner that precludes dis-assembly or that it is impossible to find parts. 

The parts are on the way as we speak.  Fortunately, I have one bag of pizza dough in the freezer to get me by until the KA is revived!!

[bradtri]

Just some closing remarks as I'm up and going again.

fixya.com did cancel my $20 charge per my request ...

After receiving my new gear and reassembling, I started the machine up with great anticipation, only to hear some serious clattering in the gears.   But, I had tried to take a shortcut and just supplement the existing grease that was in the gearbox.  After cleaning all the old grease out and scrubbing the gears with a toothbrush, it all went back together and ran smoothly.  Turns out there were some good sized metal shavings from the gear that went bad and they had lodged in a couple of gear teeth. 

Now, I think this mixer runs better than it ever has.  It was a refurb from KA and I'm suspecting that the one gear was damaged from the get go. 

For anybody doing the repair on a KA 600, here's some steps:

Remove all necessary screws to take of outer housing of machine and the top of the gear box
Remove retainer ring from top  of bevel gear.
The bevel gear can then be slid (with some force) up and off the shaft
Remove the free-floating pin that was under the bevel gear
The worm follower gear can also then be slid (with some force) up and off the shaft. [/li][/list]


Thanks again for the info from everybody and for the nudge to just fix it myself.

[dmcavanagh]

bradtri. good to hear that you were successful. congrats!

[sfspanky]

Next time it dies, just get a Hobart 12 quart with a 1/2 hp motor. I see them used on Craigslist for $800 all the time.  KAs are not really designed for us bread geeks.

[bradtri]

I'm not sure if I'm a bread geek or not ... generally 2-3 batches per week is my max.  An $800 Hobart would be nice ... but I guess if I can fix my KA for $10-$15 and 30 minutes of work every couple years I'd probably be content with that.  Plus, I've got a Panasonic bread machine as a backup.

I also spent some time more closely observing the action of the spiral dough hook, and I think speed 2 is definitely getting a good knead going on.  So, I might keep the speed down and see if that extends the life of the gears.

[dmcavanagh]

bradtri, speed #2 is more than enough, I rarely go above #1 on my KA when making dough.

[aquaticdoc]

Having gone through 2 Pro-series KA's and getting a repair cost of $275 for the most recent, we looked elsewhere. The KAs were always noisy and sounded like they were working hard, despite seemingly adequate motor amperage. I make pizza dough by i kg. batches, 00 flour, and this shouldn't overwhelm a KA, but repeatedly did.

I spent a lot of time websearching. The counter-tops Hobarts were beautiful, but ridiculously priced. We bought a Globe SP5, paid $579 including free shipping and no tax, and have used it for 3 months with numerous batches of dough made. The unit is very functional looking, nearly silent, totally and completely satisfactory. We are very happy with it.

Aquaticdoc