Help! HoH mystery spring

[hillbillyhepkat]

Hey fellas, my late 50s Maytag dryer started makin noise so I took the back off (of course it's not makin noise now that I'm lookin at it) but there was a spring layin in the bottom & I can't figure out where it goes. It's a skinny spring probably 3/16 x 18". I sure some of y'all know exactly where that came from.
I'll drop a pic --sorry it's a bit dark.
Appreciate any help

 

[d-jones]

Is your dryer electric, perhaps a DE701? The only thing that comes to mind is a heating coil. Nothing even remotely like that would be found on the gas version and on the electric version only the heating coil would resemble that. But if that's a heating coil I can't imagine how it escaped from its mounts without blowing fuses. If a gas version, or DG701, did someone wrap a spring around the felt seal for the drum cover to hold it against the drum instead of using the normal felt band?

 

[qsd-dan]

That looks like the spring that held an air filter on the back rear air intake louvers of the early design HOH's. It's not required. There should be 2 of them.

 

[maytag85]

That’s to hold the filter in place to the rear panel. Maytag HOH’s up until 1964 had a filter on the rear panel to dry things in clean filtered air as a way to prevent airborne dust from being re-deposited onto clean laundry and to prevent dust and lint from being drawn into the cabinet.

 

[gansky1]

That's a spring (1 of 2) that holds the air filter on the inside of the back panel.

 

[d-jones]

That’s to hold the filter in place to the rear panel. Maytag HOH’s up until 1964 had a filter on the rear panel to dry things in clean filtered air as a way to prevent airborne dust from being re-deposited onto clean laundry and to prevent dust and lint from being drawn into the cabinet.

WhaaaaaaT? How did I never hear of this before? I even went through the parts manual page by page to make sure I wasn't missing something. It just proves the old adage, you learn something new every day.

 

[maytag85]

This is why I would read over various threads in the archives since there’s almost always something new to be learned, always.