ahagey
New member
Hello all,
I’m new to the forum and would not necessarily describe myself as a vintage appliance enthusiast. I am, however, in possession of a late 60’s Lady Kenmore electric dryer in Avocado green that I’m pretty fond of. I’m having an issue with it shutting off prematurely and I thought maybe I could pick the brains of those familiar with these older machines. I garbage picked the dryer about 5 years ago and have been using it regularly ever since. In that time, I have only had to replace the door switch actuator. Last week, it started shutting off after running for about two minutes. When restarted, it would run for about 10 seconds and then would only run with the “start” switch held down. Having 2 loads of wet clothes, I found a way to keep the “start” switch held down and set a timer on my phone. It dried the clothes just fine. I then found that when I immediately after put the 2nd load in, that it started up and ran properly, shutting off on its own when the clothes were dry. Next time I tried to use it it was back to the original problem. In trying to troubleshoot the problem, I removed the duct work to look for a clog and wiped down the moisture sensors with alcohol, thinking that a build-up may be preventing them from functioning properly. No luck with either of those attempts. So I’m looking for advice on which direction to go next. I don’t have a background in appliance repair but am fairly handy. I’m also generally curious as to how you folks find parts for your machines. I’m afraid it will need something relatively simple but the part will be discontinued or prohibitively expensive. My plan is to take a trip to my local appliance parts store with the model number and see what they even have available. I think this a pretty cool vintage dryer and would like to keep using it as long as I can. I just discovered that the instrument panel and drum will light up and am kind of excited to get the bulbs changed…but only if I can figure out what is wrong with the operation of the dryer itself. Any suggestions are appreciated!
I’m new to the forum and would not necessarily describe myself as a vintage appliance enthusiast. I am, however, in possession of a late 60’s Lady Kenmore electric dryer in Avocado green that I’m pretty fond of. I’m having an issue with it shutting off prematurely and I thought maybe I could pick the brains of those familiar with these older machines. I garbage picked the dryer about 5 years ago and have been using it regularly ever since. In that time, I have only had to replace the door switch actuator. Last week, it started shutting off after running for about two minutes. When restarted, it would run for about 10 seconds and then would only run with the “start” switch held down. Having 2 loads of wet clothes, I found a way to keep the “start” switch held down and set a timer on my phone. It dried the clothes just fine. I then found that when I immediately after put the 2nd load in, that it started up and ran properly, shutting off on its own when the clothes were dry. Next time I tried to use it it was back to the original problem. In trying to troubleshoot the problem, I removed the duct work to look for a clog and wiped down the moisture sensors with alcohol, thinking that a build-up may be preventing them from functioning properly. No luck with either of those attempts. So I’m looking for advice on which direction to go next. I don’t have a background in appliance repair but am fairly handy. I’m also generally curious as to how you folks find parts for your machines. I’m afraid it will need something relatively simple but the part will be discontinued or prohibitively expensive. My plan is to take a trip to my local appliance parts store with the model number and see what they even have available. I think this a pretty cool vintage dryer and would like to keep using it as long as I can. I just discovered that the instrument panel and drum will light up and am kind of excited to get the bulbs changed…but only if I can figure out what is wrong with the operation of the dryer itself. Any suggestions are appreciated!
