Hello. I was wondering if someone could help me diagnose my dryer. A few days ago it started having difficulty getting going after pressing the start button. I found that if I turned the tub it would sometimes startup. Other times you'd press start but it would just hum for as long as you were pressing the button. It also would intermittently try to start without pressing the start button. More specifically, if the knob was turned to a time selection it would just start.

Today, I decided to try to clean out the vents and see if I could figure out was wrong. I followed instructions I found on checking the common things that could cause a dryer not to start and found the thermal fuse, start switch, and door switch to all have continuity. After that, I took off the lint trap and found a lot of lint built up in front of the blower. So much so that I thought it could have been preventing the motor from turning. I cleaned it out pretty thoroughly and thought it made sense to try to see if that would fix the problem. So I put the back of the dryer back together but left the front disassembled so I could test the motor. I plugged the dryer back into the wall and try to start it and nothing happened. There was no hum but there was a burning smell pretty immediately.

So my questions are, does it seems like it is the motor that is causing the problem? Is it normal for there to be a burning smell when a motor stops working? Could the problem be the heating elements?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.