I have an old Hotpoint/GE dishwasher. The lower spray arm (the only
spray arm) has a very thin paper-like seal at the bottom that looks to
be Teflon. It's held in place by a gear-shaped nut.

My old one was half worn away, so I decided to replace it. I did my
best to put the new one in like the old one, but it doesn't seem
right--the spray arm doesn't turn freely (it's dry now, though).

The way I have it now is with the seal AROUND the spray arm shaft (held
in place by the gear-shaped nut) with the inner seal edge "crawling up"
the spray arm shaft. Is this right?

The only other way I can see doing it is to have the whole seal beneath
the spray arm assembly, which would be the way it would have to go if I
installed the gear nut and paper-like seal before I installed the spray
arm.

Thank you,

Mike

Figured it out for myself, but I'll post the answer here in case
anybody else ever searches for this:

The teflon seal seems to work well below the spray arm, and not around
the shaft of the spray arm. I removed the spray arm, removed the
gear-shaped nut and old gasket, put the new gasket on and then
carefully tightened the gear-shaped nut to ensure that the gasket was
in place, then replaced the spray arm.

When the dishwasher is off, the spray arm rests on the gasket. It
turns (relatively) freely, though it would probably wear through
quickly if it were like this all the time. Although I can't see in the
dishwasher when it's running, I would guess that the water pressure
levitates the arm above the gasket and prevents too much contact.

The dishwasher cleans much better now.

This was a Hotpoint / GE HDA465-01.

Mike