Kenmore 90 Series Model 110 Clothes Dryer is squealing and making noise while running its cycle. Also - How to gain access to interior.

Is your Kenmore 90 Series Model 110 clothes dryer serranating you with a mild music of its own?  The sounds may be squeals, squeaks or just plain stupid noise.  "Stupid noise?"  Yeah, that's the kind when you'd rather have your dryer sitting outside in the yard as opposed to listening to the stupid noise it's making while running inside your residence.  lol

This is a solution which may remedy your issue.  These dryers contain four rubber rollers which the turning drum rotates on during its cycle.  Two are located at the rear of the housing and two are located at the front of the dryer housing.

To gain access to these wheels for a much needed lubrication the dryer will need to be dismantled.  Unfortunately, there are no quick fix solutions.  Do not let this scare you away however.  It is not as difficult as it may first appear.

First turn your breaker off in your electrical panel that feeds your dryer.  There should be an electrical schematic located on rear of the panel door which states which breaker or either the breakers may be labeled individually.   If you cannot find either, no worries, it should be a 30 amp, two pole breaker - flip those off or simply unplug the dryer...hey that's easy. 

Next after you are certain the power is off, you will need to remove the dryer filter, just go ahead and do this now because if you forget when you get really involved later on - it could possibly become damaged.

Next remove the two end caps on the control panel by easily popping them off.  May need a flat head screwdriver for this.  Just go easy, starting at the bottom edge.

Then after the covers have been removed, remove both screws.  Then, grab the control panel at each end, pull the entire control panel towards you about an inch to dislodge it from the top of the enclosure then flip it to the rear.  (Again)--> You will feel the control panel slide forward about an inch and then it will stop.  At this point flip it towards the rear.   It will remain in place if flipped far enough to the rear.  (see following pictures for clarity) 

Once you have the control panel flipped backwards and it is in place, remove the three screws attaching the rear panel to the enclosure.

Now after these three screws are removed you can simply slide the top portion of the enclosure towards you.  This will disengage it from some locking tabs on the front of the dryer.  Now just lift off.

Now to the bottom front of the dryer to remove the lower cover.

Insert a stiff putty knife along the top of the cover, approximately 3.5" - 4" from the end.  You are attempting to align your putty knife blade on top of the black locking devices (as seen in the picture above) and depress that locking device downward. (you may need a flashlight to peek into the crack between the covers)  There is one on each end. 

You do not necessarily have to press both of them down simultaneously.  Just press one closed and  pull that end towards you slightly as you do so.  It should remained unlocked on that 'one end'.  Now just do the same thing on the other end.  Cover will dislodge and come off after both are unlocked.

Then onto removing the dryer filter housing.  Make certain your filter has been removed from inside before attempting to remove this housing.  You will damage your filter if not.

BE CERTAIN ELECTRICITY IS TURNED OFF - BREAKER IS OFF AND/OR DRYER UNPLUGGED before attempting this next part.

 

To the right of the drum, reach alongside the element housing and remove the leads feeding the element itself, there are two.  Just look for one wire on each end that is being fed from the dryer's wiring harness.  You do not need to remove all the other connections (jumpers) that are located there on the element housing.  Just the two that are being fed from the dryer's wiring harness.  This is obvious, just look really well and you will see what I am talking about.


When removing the leads, use finesse and try not to wiggle the terminals excessively and with excessive force in either direction,  for you can damage the spade terminals on the thermostat and thermal cut-off if you do so.  Just use finesse - pull and wiggle cautiously and you should be able to get the two terminals off, which are feeding the element housing without damaging the spade terminals.  The male spade terminals are not overly fragile, its just worth noting this because some people may not be cognizant at the moment and just use excessive wiggling.

  

 

Now get you a 1/4" nut runner and remove the housing itself.  Remove the two screws attaching the foot of the housing to the bottom of the dryer's enclosure.   

Very carefully, so as to not to bend the terminals of the thermostat and thermal cut off against the side of the drum, twist the housing clockwise and pull it out of the rear exhaust duct seat.  It seats in there about 1/2" deep.  Dislodges very easily and re-installs just as easy.  No worries here.

 

Once the element housing has been removed then you can remove the belt that turns the drum.  Reach under the drum with your right hand.  It would be best to lie on your back and place your right arm under the drum.  Grab the tension pulley in the palm of your right hand as you hold the belt in the fingertips of your right hand.  Push the tension pulley towards the motor and remove the belt from the pulley on the motor shaft.  Very easily return the tension pulley to its position (its' under spring tension).

(installation is reverse order, its really easy if you sit the tension pulley into the palm of your right hand)

Now the belt has been removed, time to remove the drum.

 This front cover of the enclosure (cabinet) needs to be removed.  There are four screws total, one on all the corners.  Remove the ground wire located on the bottom right of the cover and disconnect the four wire leads located in the upper left corner of the cover.  Just remember what wires were disconnected from where.  Side note- you shouldn't accidentally get the wires crossed later when installing because of the memory left in the wire and the varying lengths, those two facets will aid in distinguishing their appropriate connection locations. 

 

Slide drum forward a little bit through the concave depressions in the side wall panels and slip the belt off the rear end of the drum.

 

After removal of the drum ensure you clean this rim really well where the drum rides.  Also, clean the drum and vacuum the felt gasket on both ends.

Clean all the way around this rim's entirety ensuring all grime, dirt and grease have been removed. 

 

The culprit of your noisy clothes dryer, these rollers which the dryer drum rolls around upon. You have two at the front end and two at the rear of the dryer.  They need to be removed, the pins cleaned and then lubed with some good light-medium weight lithium lubricant.

 

Be really careful with these cheaply made plastic, triangular retainers.  They can be removed very carefully with a pair of needle nose pliers, just take your time and go easy. I did not break any when removing mine, they seem to be a little ductile and may not break as easily as one may think, however use caution and ease and you should be fine.   

 

Clean up these wheel pins by removing all hair, grime, dirt and wiping them clean with a rag before applying a layer of some light-light/medium weight lithium lubricant to the pins.  Then reinstall your wheels and you are good to go.

 While you have the drum and all of the components removed:

1. vacuum the entire area inside the dryer
2. vacuum the exhaust duct out thoroughly leaving the fan blower housing
3. vacuum the interior of the fan blower housing, may want to vacuum from rear of the dryer through the length of the duct
4. vacuum motor but be careful not to nick the electrical wire windings inside the motor
5. lube the tension pulley shaft
6. check your belt for any signs of aging, wear and determine if it might need replacing or not.  If you do not see any signs of stress or dry-rot cracks, you should be fine to reinstall.

 

be careful when vacuuming the motor to ensure you do not nick or injure the electrical wiring of the windings inside the motor.

  

Lube this shaft here, (tension pulley)

Reinstall everything in reverse order:

1. install drum - make sure you place the belt over the drum before you seat the drum in its place.  Then  seat the drum around its rim and on the rollers in the rear
2. replace front cover - replace grounding wire, replace 4 wires in the front, upper left corner to their appropriate positions
3. now place on the right side of tension pulley, place tension pulley in the palm of your right hand, push the pulley towards the motor, using your fingers orient the belt around the motor shaft pulley and easily allow the spring loaded tension pulley to tighten up on the belt
4. the rest is simply replacing the parts as before mentioned.

If you found this posting helpful and beneficial please consider giving a donation via the provided PayPal donate button.

It takes hours to compose these tutorials that are not readily available anywhere else on the web that i could find, thus the reasoning behind my creating this blog - to help other do-it-yourselfers.

  

Kenmore 90 Series, Model 110 Clothes Dryer Runs But Has Stopped Heating and drying clothes - Quick How To repair

 

Kenmore 90 Series Clothes Dryer Heating safety sensors test and replacement procedures for Models 110.66901692 and Models 110.66902692

Kenmore 90 series, Model 110 clothes dryer stopped drying clothes
Heavy Duty, Super Capacity Plus Kenmore clothes dryer has stopped drying clothes

Maybe your dryer will run but its not drying clothes any longer. 

The following is a picture tutorial / technical manual, to aid you (the homeowner) in repairing your clothes dryer that will not heat up.

If your dryer has stopped running mid-cycle or runs but has stopped heating, it is more than likely a faulty safety sensor.  Safety sensors are designed to prevent potential house fires from a clothes dryer which would otherwise overheat or start a fire.  (see fire hazard due to dust accumulation and how safety sensors SAVED me)  that would potentially overheat.  They are great when they are working properly but when it will no longer dry your clothes after an hour cycle, it has a way of leaving you a little disheartened and left wondering...most of the time- thinking!  Thinking of green ($$). 

These safety sensors are a normally-closed electrical switch, which under normal conditions keep the circuit closed at all times to allow the free flow of electrical current, thereby allowing the heating element to heat up.  The interior contacts inside this switch would normally only open (disengage contact) only if the dryer's heating element were to reach some 'factory set' heat range that is considered too high.  At this point the switch opens and disrupts the electrical circuit and the dryer's heating element stops heating immediately.

As it is with most mechanical applications after some time, these safety sensor switches become faulty, thus can create the situation your facing.  The electrical flow serving your heating element has been disrupted but not the motor's electrical needs, thus the reason your dryer is running but not heating.

Before you get too involved, ensure you have located the correct breaker in your electrical panel for your clothes dryer and turn it OFF.   The breaker should have been identified by the electrician on the inside of the panel's cover.  A typical clothes dryer breaker should be a double pole, 30 amp breaker.  Just look for 30 on the breaker's handle.  If in doubt, please just turn all of them off in the panel. 

Not certain or don't want to go that route, just unplug your dryer--Now that's a simple fix. 

After I wired my home I placed appropriate stickers on the panel's breakers to aid my wife and myself in locating the correct ones later on.  - great suggestion. So turn off that 30 amp dryer breaker.

Tools needed:  Stiff putty knife
                       1/4" nut driver
                       Electrical Volt meter

Next remove your dryer's lower cabinet cover located directly underneath your dryer's door to gain entry to your dryer's mechanical components.
How to remove my clothes dryer's compartment panel- (located underneath dryer door)

The heating element and the safety sensors that need to be tested are on the side of this housing where the arrow is pointed.

 

 

 Disconnect the little white hose from the lint filtration housing to gain entry to the heating element.  Disconnect the hose from the upper connection as shown in photos above and simply bend it easily out of the way.  I did not take the entire white plastic hose off, I just disconnected it from the junction as seen in the photo and then bent it easily behind the housing to the left. 

 Remove the front cover from the heating element housing.

 Remove these two screws from the element housing's base.

Make sure you have your dryer's electrical breaker off or either the dryer unplugged before reaching in to take these electrical leads off of the housing.  There are two hot wires serving this heating element that come from the wiring harness (collection of wires) from the central portion of the dryer.  One of these wires is attached to the front terminal block of the heating element (white block in pic below).  The second wire is attached to the rearmost sensor (thermal overload sensor).  If you look really close, all of the other wires are simply jumper wires (jumping from one sensor to the next), thus there are only two wires serving this element.  Each of these two wires have 120 volts and when applied to the coil, create 240 volts of electricity at the coil.

Note:  These wires have a slight bend in them which depicts their frontal or rear locations which will aid you when reconnecting them after reinstalling the element.

 After the wires are disconnected grasp the element housing and twist gently to remove.

 pull straight out

Portion of dryer shown where the rear of the element housing will seat when reinstalling it.

Revealing the location of the leads on the sensors. You cannot accidentally mix the wires up on the sensors because the sensors are just a set of contacts and the electricity will flow through them either way the wires are connected.  When reconnecting wires after reinstalling heating element, see picture below for explanation and proper attachment.

 Notice the heating element's terminals here (picture above), we want to test the continuity and resistance through the element's coils to factor out whether or not this heating element is the origin of the issue with the dryer not heating and no longer drying clothes.  With your volt meter set to the Ohms, you should get a reading somewhere between 7 -12 ohms.

 This is the Ohm setting on an electrical meter.

With the volt meter set to the Ohms setting, touch one of your test leads to one terminal of the heating element and the other test lead to the other terminal.  Doesn't matter which test lead goes to which terminal. We are testing continuity and resistance, not electrical voltage so the arrangements of the leads does not matter.  We are simply trying to determine that the wired coils are still intact and that electrical energy can flow from one point (terminal) to the other point (terminal) via the wire.  The electrical reading is done by the volt meter sending a very small minute voltage through the wire via the volt meter's battery.

My measured 10.2 ohms so i am within the range.  So my heating element is not the origin of the problem.  If you do not receive any resistance measurement or continuity through the coil, you may have a bad heating element.  (replacement of heating element post)

 Next remove the thermostat from the side of the element's housing.  Check for an Ohm reading across both of the terminal contacts, once again it does not matter which lead you touch to which terminal.  I received a very low .1 percent of an Ohm, meaning their is almost perfect continuity across the interior contacts.  So this is not my problem either.  If you do not receive an ohm reading it means that your thermostat is faulty.



The contacts in this thermostat open when the temperature inside the element housing reaches around 250 degrees.  During normal operation this thermostat will open and close dependent upon that temp.  However, this thermostat will always be closed at room temperature, so you should receive an ohm reading, if nothing then your thermostat is faulty.  Apparently the interior contacts are 'burnt open', so this would be your culprit.

Next, check the heat limit cutoff fuse by removing it and checking it for continuity through the contacts.

This is a normally closed switch meaning that the contacts are always closed unless it senses too much heat inside the dryer.  So you should receive an ohm reading of some value, If you receive no ohm reading than the contacts are burnt out and are no longer 'closed' and thus are no longer touching therefore the switch is faulty.  These limit fuses are rated to open at approximately 390 degrees.  They are a 'one time' fuse, if you receive no ohm reading then you must replace.

see i received no reading, no numerical value registered, thus i knew this was the culprit of my dryer not heating anymore.

The Culprit.

You can easily test to confirm that the faulty switch in hand is indeed the origin of the issue by reinstalling the dryer element back into its original place. 

1. Install heating element housing and put screws into their proper place.  
2. Place the hot wire feed on the element terminal 
3. place the lead that you removed off of the rear cutoff switch to the other terminal on the element
4. You are bypassing the safety sensors just for a moment to verify that the dryer will heat up when these sensors are bypassed
5. do you recall that i mentioned that the heating element terminals were different sizes so that one could not purposely bypass the sensors by installing the wires in this manner?   Also remember that my thermostat switch is in good condition so I can use this in the test.
6. I just connected the return hot to the thermostat, then took the thermostat's short lead to my element terminal.  ah-ha, it fit, now i am just feeding through the element and the thermostat, bypassing the faulty cutoff sensor in the rear
7. Yep, the element heated up..confirming that the sensor in hand is the culprit

 I ordered two more parts from appliancezone.com. I replaced the thermostat for any future just in case and while i was inside the dryer and the thermal cut off switch.  The part number for the Thermostat for a Kenmore 90 series 110 model dryer such as i have is 3390291 and the thermal cut off switch's part number is 3398671.

 

 remember to place wire jumpers back into their appropriate positions before installing the element with the new sensors in place back into the dryer.  Notice the free terminal on the coil terminal block and the cut off switch.  This is where the two wires inside the dryer connect to.

 make sure the element housing lines up with and installs into the circular cutout it was removed from in the rear of the dryer

 

 reinstall housing screws

reinstall element cover

 After hot wires are back into place, turn breaker back on and test dryer to ensure the element will heat up. Viola! back in business.  All for about $16.00 and $6.95 of that was shipping.

Slip front cabinet panel cover back onto the little black retainers and snap upper portion into place. You do not need any tools to do this part.

Please note:  sometimes the reason your 'thermal overload' fuse was opened (blown) in the first place may be directly linked to decreased exhaust flow resulting in a back-up of excess heat inside the dryer housing. (see here for further regarding cleaning out and replacing your air duct) 

It takes a lot of work to compose and write this blog for individuals to use for their gain when dealing with issues such as this, so if you would like, please feel free to donate.

 Some more information to help you find the correct Hi-Limit and Thermal Cut-Off fuse for your Kenmore Dryer 110.  

 

 

 Ask Chris a question

What if you just replaced a sensor a week or two ago and now they are blown or gone faulty again?   

 

~chris