Slight issue with the '56 Whirlpool Imperial dryer....

[turquoisedude]

Well, it's that time of the year again - the weather's just not right for line-drying but as fate would have it, the only dryer I have fully hooked up and operational is giving me some attitude...
The 1956 Whirlpool has been the star performer but the last few times I have used it, I noticed something odd. Normally, the dryer would cycle through to the 'Off' position of the timer (a buzzer would sound twice to warn you of the end of cycle). Now, the dryer stops running at about the 5 minute mark on the timer dial; the buzzer does not sound anymore. The dryer will restart immediately when the dial is turned to almost any length of time.
My gut feeling (which as we all know usually turns out wrong...LOL) is telling me there's a problem with a thermostat that is causing the dryer to cut off prematurely. I'm going to hazard a guess that there was no 'cool down' phase in the drying operation of a Whirlpool dryer of this vintage...
This dryer instantly became my favourite and it's going to be a few weeks still before I can get the rebuilt GE V-12 into the basement and get a new power feed to the Westy 'singing signal' dryer...
Any thoughts or suggestions??

 

[appnut]

. I'm going to hazard a guess that there was no 'coo

Yes there was at least a 5 minute cool-off period.  If you trn the timer to about 10 or 15 minutes and slowly turn the timer back toward off, you should feel/hear a "click" at about 5 minutes.  Then slowly advbance toward off and you should hear the buzzer and then off.

 

[DADoES]

 
Bad timer contact, shutting off completely at the cool-down.  There's no thermostat involved on the cool-down, just timing.  The click Bob describes is the heating contact disengaging, the drive motor and timer motor should stay on for the remaining 5 mins.  Same thing happened on our 1965 unit.  Serviceman opened the timer, fixed the contact, cool-down worked again.

 

[turquoisedude]

Makes sense!

Thank you for the advice, gentlemen! As you know, I just love to jump to conclusions and undertake unnecessary repairs with vintage machines... LOL

How likely do think repairing a timer contact would be? I am remembering what happened the last time I tried to mess with a timer - it didn't end well... Could it be just a dirty contact??

 

[philr]

Didn't John add some relays in this dryer to avoid damaging the timer contacts? I don't see how the motor would stop and timer would stop advancing because of bad heater contacts. Maybe something is wrong inside the timer and when the heater contacts open for the cool down, another contact that normally stops the motor/timer at the end of the cycle also opens.

If someone could provide the wiring diagram for these, I'm sure this would help to identify your problem.