Reply #9
That basic design dates back to at least 1948, they kept that design until 1960 here in the US (in Canada, was kept until 1964), in 1961 they went to another design which was a hybrid between this setup and the newer (My ‘63 uses this setup) which was kept until 1965 (in Canada they switched to this design in 1966), in 1966 they introduced the design they are using to this day (in Canada is was in 1968 when they went ton the newer design). From my experience, my ‘63 dries pretty well and dries fairly quickly. Some people will argue those older Whirlpool built dryers are slower since there’s a inch or so of space between the bulkhead and perforated drum back and that’s why they had to switch designs, but the real reason why I think Whirlpool updated their dryers in 1961 then again in 1966 was because of cost cutting. The older Whirlpool dryers are significantly more complex compared to the ‘66 and later models and required 2 separate stamping presses for the stationary bulkhead and perforated drum back, along with having a belt for the blower and a bearing for the blower. Only thing that’s nice about these older Whirlpool dryers is they don’t suffer from lint clogging up at the bottom of the lint screen like the ‘66 and later models, once that happens they drying performance will slow down significantly.
