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

Removing Kenmore 90 series, model 110 clothes dryer mechanical compartment panel (lower panel located underneath dryer door)

How to gain entry inside of your Kenmore Clothes dryer in order to maintain it. 

You do not need to remove the entire clothes dryer cabinet or completely take your clothes dryer apart for most repairs. 

You can simply remove the mechanical compartment panel of the cabinet from your clothes dryer and gain entry to its inner working components.  This panel of the cabinet is located directly under your dryer's door. Dependent on the repair needed you may not need to remove your clothes dryers entire cabinet.  

How to remove the lower cabinet door (panel) from a Kenmore 90 series, Model 110 clothes dryer.

Using a stiff putty knife insert it approximately 3.5" - 4" from the ends of the bottom cover depressing the locking snaps downwards.  You want to shine a light in the crack and ensure the putty knife blade is above the black snapping apparatus, depress it down and open that end of the cover.  Do the same thing for the other end.  There are only two locking tabs that hold this cabinet's panel in place, one is located on each end 3.5"-4" from the end of the panel.

Just make sure your putty knife has a stiff blade or else it will not provide the rigidity needed to dislodge and depress these locking means downwards. Once again, the knife blade needs to slide in, above these locking mechanisms.  You can easily see this with a flashlight.

There are only two locking mechanisms on this Kenmore heavy duty capacity 90 series clothes dryer bottom cover.  One on each end about 3.5" - 4" from the end of the panel.

Close up view of the locking clips...please excuse the dust.  Just lift the cover right off of the bottom holders.

To replace: slide the panel back onto the lower tabs as seen in the photo and snap the upper portion into position. You do not need any tools to reinstall this cabinet panel cover.