I have this Amana Dryer, Model ALE643RBW, and it has what appears to be Timer and Heating problems. The Timer fails to advance…the timer motor does not run…intermittently on both the Regular and Permanent Press Cycles. I bought a new timer, and the situation remains the same. It will work perhaps one out of three times…the rest of the time, the wife has to check the dryer every few minutes and manually control the cycles. It does appear to work ok on the “Timed Dry” cycle. I took both the old and new timers apart and metered all the contacts ok…the old timer had normal wear and burned spots on its contacts. The new timer appears perfect. I metered all the contacts as I manually cycled through the cycles, and all contacts appear to be making/breaking properly.
Then, on the Permanent Press cycles, unless I switch to regular/high heat, there is little or no heat. I get good heat on the Regular and Timed cycles. I metered the Fabric Selector Switch, per the wiring diagram and get good continuity on all positions. There is a 560 OHM resister on this switch, and it meters 566 ohms on my Fluke digital multimeter.
I have given the machine a good cleaning, and checked all the wiring for loose, etc., and am rapidly running out of ideas. This thing is about 7 years old, and I am about one more complaint from the wife away from dumping Amana and going to Whirlpool or Kenmore. I have become quite skilled in working on the Washer, but this dryer has me confused.
I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas of anything further I might try before I go $1,000 in hock for a new washer/dryer.
Thanks, in advance…Don M.