Turquoisedude's tale of dryer redemption - the 57 Frigidaire Imperial this time!

[turquoisedude]

I would have to declare 2019 as being the year of the dryer for me. The "fun" I've had with the '59 Frigidaire Imperial, the '57 GE Clothes Conditioner, and the '56 Whirlpool Imperial has not been at all in vain. I've learned LOTS and I have developed more of a 'wait a minute don't just plug that SOB in' mentality when it comes to vintage dryers.

Case in point, the recently acquired 1957 Frigidaire Imperial dryer.

This is possibly the coolest clothes dryer ever made, so naturally I was hoping to get this one into the Ogden Laundry to use and show off to visitors.

I took a slightly cautious approach for a change... The dryer was in damn fine shape when I got it, but I still wanted to give it a good going-over. It looks like the dryer lived in a kitchen for most of its life - a good sign - however there was some accumulated grease to deal with.

 

[turquoisedude]

I dove right in and took it apart.

It was a good move... will you look at all the lint!!

 

[turquoisedude]

I had been unsure of whether or not I should remove the drum. Turns out that was the right thing to do!

 

[turquoisedude]

I scrubbed down the interior of the dryer cabinet, but neglected to take many pictures... D'OH!

I also gave the front air grilles a beauty-parlor treatment.

 

[turquoisedude]

Back in with the drum, followed by the front panels, then the top.

 

[turquoisedude]

I did make one big boo-boo.... I dropped the door while re-installing it. Yes, there was a major flurry of expletives when I did this. Sigh...

 

[turquoisedude]

Behind the scenes, the rear panel got a thorough cleaning, too.

 

[turquoisedude]

The heater from this dryer had been removed, but it was still with the dryer. It needed a bit of a cleaning too. Oh, and I managed to smash my fingers when reinstalling it - getting that heater box lined up with the centering pin can be a pain. Well, I did it!

 

[turquoisedude]

Once the heater was back in, I had some creative rewiring to do. Recalling what the heater switches looked like on the '59 Frigidaire and '56 Whirlpool, I knew I wanted to install a relay. The centrifugal heater switch on the drive motor was in solid shape so I got creative. I contrived a way to use the switch that normally controlled the heaters to instead power the relay. This gave me a measure of additional security in case of a motor failure and of course, if the belt switch was tripped neither the motor nor the relay would be powered. I guess I am trying to, as we say here in La Belle Province, "Be a better catholic than the pope". But I feel better knowing how I've got a fail-safe with this dryer.

 

[turquoisedude]

The moment of truth....

I hooked the machine up to the 240v line in the garage and.....

Success!!

 

[turquoisedude]

I ran the dryer for a good 30 minutes; I observed that the cycling thermostat cut in and out, so I think I'm just about ready for a 'maiden dry' (that sounds odd, doesn't it?)

Next step - figure how the hell I'm going to cram this into the Ogden Laundry... LOL I believe it will displace the '51 Frigidaire TR60 dryer (and I will take advantage of that 'service break' to install a relay in that dryer too).

I still need to replace the ozone bulb that I broke when dismantling the dryer (just like I did with the '51...GRRR).

And, it's a Control Tower... Coolest. Dryer. Ever.

 

[toploader55]

Oh Dear...

When we got it, it seemed clean as a whistle and barely used. The pointer was gone on the dial ??? Hmmmmmm.... I will have to look up the day we got that with the photos.

Very Strange.

 

[repairguy]

Great job! Looks awesome!

 

[frigilux]

Bravo, Paul, and congratulations!

Every year heralded a wonderful, new console design from Frigdaire from the mid-'50s through the mid-'60s--- and the '57 is quite possibly the sexiest, most radical of them all.

 

[toploader55]

This is the day we picked it up.

That was 4-5 years ago. Strange

 

[turquoisedude]

Pointer and dial present and accounted for!

Eddie, the dial pointer is still with the machine - some of the pictures I took were while I was still soaking the knobs. The good news - the chrome underneath is pristine!!

 

[gansky1]

That's a nice example of a 57,  the grease laden kitchen is usually a good preservative for chrome!

 

[stricklybojack]

.
Looks great, exactly the same as mine, except yours works!

 

[swestoyz]

Lookin' good, Paul! And the relay is a GREAT idea. Gotta save those dryer motor switch boards before they go *POOF*

Ben

 

[whitetub]

How long will it take until the cabinet fills up with lint again?

I thought the perforated drum had an outer drum, like front load washers.

Still a pretty cool dryer.

Featured in this video. Very artistic video. Wouldn't work today on television. People would say what the he... is this...

 

[turquoisedude]

If cleaned out regularly, I'm hoping it'll be a good 20 or 30 years before it'll need a full dismantling and severe lint removal! The instructions for these dryers describe how to do a thorough cleaning without taking the machine apart - it takes a little effort, but I'll be follwing them!

 

[whitetub]

Hopefully you will get 30 years of use out of it.

I would be afraid of those exposed heating elements. They look like they could broil anything too close to them.

 

[turquoisedude]

The dryers with the exposed elements like in the Frigidaire usually have a very large drum so that clothes don't get too close to the heaters. There is a danger, of course, in overloading the dryer - one does not dry a large comforter in a dryer with elements like this! I have to admit I was scared of using something with glowing red elements (I grew up with fan-forced drying...LOL) but I have gotten used to this idea now. And needless to say, I don't leave any of my vintage dryers unattended when I am running them. Paranoid perhaps but there have been times when I needed to make that 50-foot dash to the breaker panel...

 

[whitetub]

50 foot dash to the breaker panel... sounds scary...

These perforated drums remind me of when I used to go to the laundromat.

Those huge dryers, that you would feed with quarters, and you could stick two wash loads in one dryer.

 

[Unimatic1140]

I love my Filtrator

The lint you saw was in the outer container of the dryer and not the inside of the cabinet. I clean the outer container in mine out about twice a year and it stays line free and dries as it should.

I love this dryer, by the first of October I'll start using it again through April. It makes for the softest clothes ever without needing fabric softener. I have never had anything scorch, but I never overload any appliance anyways. I use Med heat for sheets and towels and low heat for regular clothes.

 

[turbokinetic]

Forgive my ignorance....

... but I can't seem to figure out how this dryer actually functions. I see the belt and pulley arrangement so it's pretty obvious how the drum turns.  What I can't understand is how the air circulation works. It seems as if the dryer drum is open to the inside of the cabinet with openings outside the cabinet; which would preclude having any sort of closed air path as with most dryers.  Is there forced airflow or does the radiant heat from the element just "bake" the moisture out of the clothes?

 

Again sorry for a newby question.

 

[Unimatic1140]

Hi Dave, I posted this several years ago and I'll copy it here as well, this explains how the Filtrator dryer works...

 

[turbokinetic]

Robert; thanks for sharing the post about the filtrator dryer.... but I can't seem to locate the link....

 

[turquoisedude]

The Control Tower moves in!

So, one of the To-Do's for this weekend was to get the DI-57 into active service.

I wound up moving the '51 Frigidaire out to the garage temporarily to make a space for the "new" dryer. Note the mismatch with the 57 Kenmore washer. A Control Tower washer must now be found... LOL

 

[turquoisedude]

Here's a short video of the first load in process: