Occasionally we'll get strong smell of "hot electric" with our washer, accompanied by it stopping in mid-cycle, usually at the beginning of the spin. The timer will then continue until the end. Generally, it doesn't happen unless we do more than one load back to back. Also, some of our house's lights dim when the cycles switch on, and they will "pulse" along with the wash cycle. After it cools down for an hour or so, we can restart it where it left off and it'll finish normally. Any ideas?

Tilt the washer back, remove the belts, and turn the trany pulley in the spin direction. One way spin, the other way agitate. If hard to spin, you probably have something stuck in the tub, or an item stuck in the top of the tub, just pull top tub cover and check.