[FONT=Arial]I have a dryer that I purchased new about 26 years ago. It has been bullet proof up until now. The heating element will not turn off so I must unplug the dryer from the wall. I would like to fix it but am not really sure how to trouble shoot the problem. I think it could be in the timer, door switch or something else. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Alan [/FONT]
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Replacement parts for MAYTAG LDE612 DRYER- ELE | AppliancePartsPros.com
Could be a grounded element.
Check the heating coil.
Unplug the unit and both wires to the coil.
Check it with a meter, should be around 10 to 12 ohms.
Then check from each side of the coil to the case/frame, both should be infinite ohms (open). If not the coil may have sagged or broken and is touching the case.
This can cause it to run all the time.
Note: You may have 2 problems as usually turning the timer to off should turn off the heating coil.
I could not find a wiring diagram for this unit so cannot confirm this.
The heater runs off of 240 volts. A grounded element is running part of the heater at 120 volts as it is now connected to Neutral. So you still have to have one side of the line connected to the heater. One side of the line goes through the centrifugal switch on the motor so when the motor is stopped that side should be disconnected. The other side of the heater goes through the thermostat’s thermal cut-off and a set of timer contacts. So with the timer at off that side of the heater should be disconnected.
Since the only way to shut it off is to unplug it for some reason one side of the heater is still getting power which points to another problem.
I hope I explained the above OK so that it makes sense.
The above is a bit of a guess as I do not have the wiring diagram.
You may want to check in the control console to see if they stored it in there or it may be glued to the back cover.
[FONT=Arial]Well now the heater does not heat up at all. I plugged the dryer back in and tried to use it but now it only runs without heat. Could this be another clue to the heating element going out?
Thanks.
Alan[/FONT]
[COLOR=“DarkRed”]Could this be another clue to the heating element going out?[/COLOR]
Yes
What can happen is that the element grounds out in such a way that a short piece of it gets very hot and eventually burns out.
[FONT=Arial]Thank you so much for the advise. I open up the dryer to take a look at the heating element and it turned out the black wire that runs from the motor to the heating element had grounded. I appears to have worn over the years until the insulation failed causing the wire to ground against the heating element housing. I removed the wire, spliced it together and the dryer is working fine again. I also secured the wire to prevent it from rubbing and causing a problem again. I has lucky this didn’t cause a fire or shock someone. Again, thanks for the advise, it gave me a good idea where to start.
Alan [/FONT]
You are welcome.
And thanks for getting back to us. Now when others search for a similar problem they will see what actually worked instead of just suggestions about what could be the cause.