Kitchen Large Electric Appliances - Whirlpool Electric Dryer lev4634, troubleshooting

I read through the FAQ, but couldnt figure out my problem so here goes.

We are renting a house currently, and when we moved in there was a washer and dryer, pretty old though. The landlords said we were welcome to use them but the weren't going to replace them if they died. So we just stuck our washer and dryer in the basement of a family members house and used the old clunkers. Well the dryer on the clunker set died, it had trouble drying, would shut off halfway through a load, wouldnt start and eventually white smoke came out of the dryer. Dead, and I never tried to fix it since it was just temporary. Now we have our whirlpools set up.


Our dryer started making a burning smell the other day, and then my girlfriend told me that after she let it cool down and tried it again it wasn't heating up. I checked the vent but couldnt find a blockage, though the hose that came with this rental house is too long(it gets out of the house short enough, but there is a 6+ foot hose connecting the dryer to the outlet, so thats going to get replaced)

I took her word on that, probably should have tested it before I took the thing apart. I have the heating element out, but I cannot find a break anywhere in it. However half of the housing is darkened/blackened

Heres a picture.

http://img78.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1000690wn9.jpg

Is this a problem? where else should I be looking?

Might have been some lint that got on element to cause the burning smell & blacken element. Or if the element is touching the metal frame somewhere it will stay on at half power & overheat. Your dryer has a thermal fuse located at the left of the element. Long & skinny looking with 2 wires going to it. If I remember correctly though, when that fuse goes the whole dryer stops but worth checking anyhow. It usually goes when dryer overheats due to a vent blockage. For a quick check remove the 2 wires to fuse & tape them together. Run dryer & see if element comes on. If so, replace fuse. Part #3392519.
DO NOT bypass the fuse & use dryer thinking you fixed it. The fuse is there for a purpose. Mainly to keep your house from burning down. That would ruin your Sunday. Dave

Thanks for the response, The element isn't touching the housing anywhere, and it seemed pretty clean, still the blackening makes me thing something made the connection at some point.

So you would recommend putting the dryer back together, leaving the backing plate off and running it to see if it gets hot?

Yes. Put element back on, jump the thermal fuse & see if element works then. If so, don't use dryer again untill you replace the fuse.

Well I hooked everything back up, didnt bypass the thermal fuse, and it seemed to be working fine, exhaust air was running in the 140 degree range per my meat thermometer. Smelled ok too, I'm going to go ahead and finish putting it back together and try running some loads through it. I got a bit jumpy since we just had the ancient dryer die on us, and was worried we were going to kill our nice one. Hopefully it was just some lint or something that grounded the heating element, but it appears(to my newbie eyes) to be working ok now.