1972 Sears Kenmore 800 Dryer

[searsbest]

I found myself inadvertently strolling through our local Habitat for humanity this past Saturday and stumbled upon this poor old soul. I left it behind and went home and stewed about it the rest of the day and all day Sunday. (after a bit of convincing, hubby was kinda on board ;0)
They are closed Monday, so another day to think about it... How could I possibly leave this behind.. lighted console, all of the books, electronic dry.. (probably came from it's original owner, the orange dots on the console are for visually impaired people, and they did come off easily!) All of the preliminary investigations looked good, I will tear into it this weekend!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Beautiful find! Congratulations! We share your joy!

Deaf as well as blind; the wake the dead buzzer is cranked all the way up (or else it was in the basement, but it does not look like a basement dryer). I guess that she did not trust the electronic dry control; no markings there.

Oh wow! Drum's like new; small loads.

Photo 6, "I fall over."

 

[appnut]

Scott, I'm so glad you saved this.   This is the matching mate to the washer my parents go when I began highschool, 10th grade.  I still pine for it at times.   I have never been around this 800 dryer.  

 

[repairguy]

Congrats! Nice low use Kenmore.

 

[searsbest]

On 120vac for testing, super quiet!

 

[circlew]

Several of my relatives and friends have or had dryers like this. The design (Whirlpool/Kenmore) is probably the best dryer ever made, and the most common. In photo #7 I see it's much younger brother, Amana.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Congratulations! Nice Find

Low use and like new.  Enjoy.

 

[turquoisedude]

Wow!  Nice save,  Scott!  Your instincts were right to go back and save it!

 

If you haven't gotten the dots off yet, start first with warm water; that is often just enough to lift off the glue without tearing up the controls.  

 

[searsbest]

Some progress..

I'm waiting for some parts, idler, belt, rollers, and rear drum felt. So I haven't opened it up yet, but I did some cosmetic work to the console, and got the polyurethane off that someone had spilled down the front of it with a magic eraser. (It worked really well) The porcelain top doesn't have a scratch on it (obviously never saw a laundry basket, or that gallon of Whisk they used to sell Paul, I got the dots off of the console pretty easily by heating them up a bit with a hair dryer. Curiosity finally got the best of me, so I put the 240v cord on it and took it for a spin! This sucker dried 5 work uniforms and 2 sweatshirts in 25 minutes! Granted I washed them in the 2016 SQ so they were very well spun out. And I know I said it previously, but I cannot believe how quiet it is compared to my 1983 KM 80 series. Here are a few pics of the progress...

 

[repairguy]

Looking good!

 

[70series]

Nice dryer find, and it looks like it's in excellent condition. This is actually a 1971 model, the last year of the metal handles.

 

[hippiedoll]

WOWZERS...

That KENMORE dryer cleaned up beautifully! It looks brand new! You did an amazing job getting it shined up!

CONGRATULATIONS on a great find!
)