1978 GM Frigidaire Dryer

[akronman]

Suggestions on how to close that gap? I lost a dryer sheet down it recently.

Through the years, I've worked on rollers and had darn good luck by just taking them off the spindle, cleaning spindle and bearings, oiling with turbine oil and re-assembling. There are quieter dryers, but it's worked well enough for me. I replaced the belt and fixed the motor. Each dis-assembly was followed by scraping, loud rollers, just poor tumbling action and plenty of re-assembly of the back of the entire machine to get it just right.

Until now: I replaced the rear drum felt seal, and did the entire job with the dryer laying down flat on its face, on a blanket. EASY re-assembly, perfect alignment of the drum and rollers, etc, and quieter than EVER before. IS that a new trick, or did I stumble across old knowledge?

But as far as that heat-deformed lint screen assembly, it isn't that I need it in perfect shape, but I need to close that gap with something. The lint screen itself is out when I took the pics, but you see the warpage, nearly 1/2 inch at the worst with the screen in.
Thanks
MArk

 

[brucelucenta]

That was one of the many problems with the 1-18 Frigidaire dryers. At some point they added a metal chrome piece along the edge of this lint trap to keep it from warping like the one in the picture. Unfortunately these dryers were not the best of design, but at least the lint filter housing was not made of bakelite like the skinny mini was! Those would simply break if something got caught on it or hit it in drying. You would think as many engineers as Frigidiare had, they would have had a better design and thought these things out before manufacturing them.

 

[mayken4now]

Not sure what I would do. One thing came to mind however. Get a pair or more of clamps, piece of wood, and a heating gun. Clamp in place (or beyond), heat and let cool. OR heat, then clamp in place? Just a thought

 

[combo52]

FD 1-18 Dryers

Hi Mark, unfortunately as Bruce stated these dryers were not really built to last for the long haul and I agree with his assessment of these dryers. That said a small angled strip of metal could be attached to help straighten and fill the gap that has developed from the filter housing warping.

 

Other question why in the world would ever use fabric softener sheets in any dryer let alone a classic dryer you want to preserve ? It is far better to use a little fabric softener in the washers rinse cycle. If you must soften in the dryer take a damp wash cloth and put a little FS on the cloth and throw in with the clothes load, this does not work as well as softener in the rinse but at least you wouldn't have the problems of these stupid sheets getting caught somewhere or even worse blocking the exhaust and causing a fire.

 

Back in the day these 1-18 dryers were common we saw quite a few that really melted down, that lint filter housing was completely destroyed.