Farm Project #15 Continuing with Clothes Dryer

 Farm Project #15: Continue Repair of Clothes Dryer

I returned to the farm to continue the clothes dryer repair since I did get the idler pulley in the mail.  Since the initial teardown, I went on YouTube and found a good video which assured me that the tub had to be removed to put the new belt in, so I immediately set forth on this line.  

I only really needed to disconnect a couple of clip-wires and remove two sheet metal screws to take the front cowling off the tub, stashing it carefully in the other room.  Now the tub slipped easily out of the felt padding around the rear cowling and I set that aside also.

This revealed some new information.  The belt is actually unbroken, although it is worn in one spot very badly.  The problem was that the idler pulley seized up and the belt merely slipped around it as I had thought, but heated up to the point of transferring the heat to the pot metal drive pulley on the end of the motor shaft.  This softened and parted, the outer half of the pulley falling off and the belt merely falling off it as well.  

This puts me in the position of having to obtain yet another part.  I decided that rather than go home yet again and order it, I would make a trek to Sparta and perhaps La Crosse in search of a parts outlet that could provide it immediately.

In the meantime, I squirted Rem-Oil onto both ends of the idler pukley axle and slowly put pressure on it to try and turn it slightly.  It took several squirts, but I got to where I was turning it perhaps one degree back and forth.  I could see only the slightest movement.  Not wanting to twist off the axle and create more damage, I worked it very slowly and soon I had it moving and it started to turn.  Using a flat blade screwdriver, I removed it from the axle.  No sense going on a trek for parts if I'm to return to ruin something else that then needs to be obtained,.

The two rubber wheels that the back of the tub rolls on were also quite stiff.  I used the same procedure to get Rem-Oil into the shafts and get them turning.

The other preliminary work was to get the vacuum again and suck all the dust, which was considerable, from the entire area.  The worst was in the fins of the fan on the near end of the motor spline.  There was about a 30% build-up and blockage in each fin.  It was terrible!  I'm wondering where all this dust came from!  There is a possibility that the felt lining on each cowl that the drum turns in, was slowly sanded away by the action, and provided all this material.

Anyway, off to try and find that little pulley.