Hi Campbell

If your dryer starts up, tumbles, heats up and is drying like normal for the two minutes, and then shuts down I am sorry to say that it is probably your motor.

If the motor is failing, it will heat up, a protective device will shut it down until it cools, and then it will run until it heats up again.

You should open up the back of the dryer and check the heating element to make certain it is not broken, and that there is no other visible problem, but I am afraid the motor is your likely problem.

I think this dryer may be a little bit older than you think, and given your situation a good used dryer may be a better bet than trying to fix this, given that a new motor is pretty expensive.

Sorry to have such bad news with your layoff.

Good luck.