Holiday project 1 - the Westy CD6 dryer

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turquoisedude

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Spending over a week at the house in Ogden over the Holidays was pure bliss - I had time to get down to the basement and fiddle with the CD6 dryer and build up my confidence working with 220v appliances (BEFORE I start on the GE Combo!). So while Hubby cleaned up 'his' side of the basement, I took apart as much as I could of the Westy dryer and cleaned it. The heater chamber was my worst fear, since mice had gotten into this dryer, but it was suprisingly clean.

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Heater assembly intact!

I am always a little leary of these open-coil heating elements, but they looked perfect!
I reassembled the heater and then hooked up (in a less-than-recommended fashion) a 220v extension to test the dryer. I had a theory that the high-limit thermostat might be the problem, so I bypassed it.
Alas, the dryer still would not start. The motor hummed, but did not start - the heaters clicked on but then off again and the music box played the full tune "How Dry I Am".

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Motor sent to the shop...

I managed to get the motor out (a bruised thumb and three cuts later, anyway) and I figured I would try the motor repair shop in Magog (the same ones who welded the L5 speed changer mounting bracket for me). Well, good news - I heard from them this morning as I was travelling back to Montreal and the motor is fixed!! The starting switch contacts were just very dirty and seem to be fine now!! YAY!

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Trouble with the drum

I managed to clean it up without removing it, but I would still like to remove the dryer drum and grease the bearing. But I just couldn't get the drum out!!
I was following instructions from a D3 Westy dryer manual to remove the drum - they described a snap ring on the bearing chamber on the back of the dryer. My CD6 does not have that and I could see nothing that would be removable on the rear bearing chamber. Inside the drum, the center of the drum may have been a retainer of some kind, but I did not want to risk messing this up! If anyone has advice on how to remove the drum safely, also please let me know!!

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Drum is much cleaner now, anyway

I scrubbed it out as best as I could in place - it looks way better than when I started!!

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And lastly, an insulation question

I noticed that when I removed the heater assembly that a good chunk of the old asbestos-board insulation was gone from this area (mice got that, I bet). This seemed to be the cause of heat damage on the music box outer casing, so I would want to replace this. What would be the best thing to use? Fiberglass like the stuff used in a hot water heater was my first instinct, but as always, advice and suggestions are welcome!!

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