A few days ago my wife noticed that there was water leaking from the bottom of our garbage disposal. Thankfully, it seems not to have been leaking for very long.
So, the other day I pulled it out to figure out what is going on and fix it if possible. First off, it appeared to be leaking out of the holes in the bottom of the unit. This means the water was actually passing through the motor.
First step, remove the four screws around the flange that holds the motor to the grinding housing. These were inverse torx. Thankfully they weren't tight at all and I was able to actually use a hex socket on them to remove them.
Next step, grab a large straight blade screw driver and start prying the upper housing from the motor.
Once its a bit apart, you should be able to remove it by working it back and forth with your hands. It is sealed with a sticky and gooey rubbery sealer.
Once the housing is off, I used an impact wrench to remove the bolt holding the grinding plate. Below this is what I found. I started at it with a wire brush and drill. Immediately, I found a hole in the steel top of the motor.
A bit more wire brushing and some cleaning shows several holes in the top of the motor.
The next step is what I found another guy on youtube do. He used rubberized undercoating for a car to plug up his holes and his video comments said it held up for a year. Who am I to argue the ultimate youtube wisdom? And, I had some rubberized undercoating on hand, so I taped it off, and sprayed a bunch on it making sure it was thick enough to plug up the holes.
In retrospect, I should have gone with several thinner layers. Its been a day now and its still not dry. Once it is dry, I will slap some RTV on the motor to housing joint and put it back together.