Warshcloth in Garbage Disposal... SUCCESS!!!

--Adventure By Tones--

I was on clean up duty after hosting my maw's surprise 60th birthday party.  I had to really attack a couple of nasty broilers.  Cleaning broiler pans could be an adventure in itself, but a little patience in soaking the gunk in hot water and suds makes things go a bit easier.

Thinking ahead, I warshed the pan in the disposal-side of the sink as I figured all the floating bits of Uncle Ed's smoked pulled pork would go down a bit easier with the help of the disposal.  When I was done scrubbing, I turned the pan over to drain and found that the water was standing in the sink.  Easy fix:

To my dismay, the disposal did not fire.  Rather, my kitchen lights dimmed and the disposal only hummed.  FAILURE!

My next step was some cautious exploratory action:

I could feel that a warshcloth had made its way down into the disposal and seized the blades once I turned on the switch.  C'mon!  My instincts took over and I yanked the crap out of the rag until it finally broke free.  Unfortunately, there were still enough threads stuck in the blades to keep things seized.  These threads wouldn't budge, even with my trusty Hemostats (my M.V.T., Most Valuable Tool).

Out of desperation, I tried the reset button (found underneath the unit), even though I knew that this would do no good as I was still getting power to the motor, hence the humming noise.

this is a dark picture, but note the red reset button.

Of course, the reset button did no good, so it was time to regroup and think this over.

After a quick breather, I did some research and found that there's a 1/4" allen screw on the bottom of the unit to manipulate the motor's shaft.  If I could reverse the shaft of the motor, the blades should open up and I could get enough of the threads out to free up the unit.

Here's where you stick your 1/4" wrench

Check it out! The caddy is complete!  No missing allens at home.

I tested the unit after freeing up most of the threads... SUCCESS!!!