Somewhat buoyed by the instructions at
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(which don't work), I did tackle this problem and ended up with a heat gun training on the mid spline which expanded it enough to jam the upper one into it. I suppose time will tell whether the heat and expansion of the plastic (followed by what I presume was the contraction again) will have caused that arm to come off in the future?
I then took out the impeller-area 'filters' and basket and found a troubling point: A third of the holes were entirely blocked by what looked a bit like a transparent algae like substance. HOWEVER the light gray plastic in the matting covering the lower basin of the whole washer seems to be either dissolving or melting and what was blocking the holes were more probably the results of that melting in the heat of the hottest cycle.
Not-so-mysteriously there is no broken off gray plastic matting anywhere to be seen?
Now only about three quarters of an inch of water builds up in the unit after it has finished running (obviously only in the lowest part) and I am wondering if that is normal. If so, this is one curiously designed unit for something which has essentially been on the market for decades with what look like only minor cosmetic modifications.
I did call GE who are supposed to have this super-duper service assistance centre to see if this was a known identified problem and they told me that they are now only a product information and assistance line and referred me to the GE Product Recall line which is 800 804 9802 which only tells you about certain problems and were practically useless with any other problem: They tell you to call 800 432 2737 which has so many even more endless menus and I suspect exists only to make money out of scheduling service calls. Ultimately they transferred me over to the supposed service number which then did the same and transferred me over to what was supposed to be the actual service number. (This goes on endlessly while I was getting on with other business)
GE are now scheduling a service call to ascertain whether there is anything actually wrong with that gray plastic matting