DE180 Maytag Dryer - Instructions

First I unplugged the dryer. Then, I took off the front cover, then a piece that holds the tumbler on. I put the new belt on and took a few minutes to make sure the belt was placed correctly. Lastly I put everything back on and plugged it back in. She started right up.

With the parts in hand, and after disconneting power and shutting off gas line, I again removed the door, front panel and front tumbler frame to expose the blower wheel. I discovered that the blower wheel was not damaged, but that compressed pieces of lint and other items where stuck to the wheel. I removed the pieces and vacuumed the the whole thing clean, tested it, and the sound stopped. Since I had the unit open, I replaced the front glides by drilling out the old rivets, removing the old glides and then riveting the new glides in place. A very simple procedure overall.

Make sure you keep track of where the different screws go and keep them inside something so you don't lose them. I also used my cell phone to photograph various areas and screws for later reference.

Found the answer online, ordered the blower from here. I used a pair of scissors in place of a snap ring pliers. Otherwise went smoothly.

After reading the other E-mails and checking the Schematics included with this website - I found the information extremely helpful. I decided to order a new belt (even though the old one looked acceptable), because mine is more than 10 years old. They send you information with order too that helps explain the process of replacement. I followed the procedures that everyone else recommended - therefore, It would be repetitive to do over again. I could not find an exact match with my model number, but some of the descriptions were close (unfortunately I do not have the model number with me right now).

People who attempt to replace their belt should be aware that replacing it is a trial and error thing. It took me a while when holding the tumbler up with my left hand and hooking the belt over the motor wheel and pulley wheel with my right hand, at the same time. You can not see what your doing and you are doing everything by touch. You have to twist it a certain way - not easy in tight quarters! The other thing that I discovered was the pulley wheel was difficult to turn. I had to spray alot of silicon spray and turn it by hand a number times to get it loose. Once it loosened up it turned over very easily.

I'm glad I did this procedure on my own. Its good to know that you are saving money by not calling a repairman and figuring it out on your own.

Thanks again Parts Select!

I had to remove the door first. Then the retaining brackets that hold the upper lid on. This also allowed removal of the front cover. After releasing the tension of the drum belt, I removed the drum and replaced the drum roller in suspect. Installation was reverse in order. Don't know why I waited so long to do such a simple job.

There was a rhythmic loud banging noise coming from our dryer (sounded like there was a sneaker going around in the drum). After reading several diagnostic recommendations, assumed it was either the drum belt or one of the guide rollers, but these were found to be OK after opening the front panel. The noise was coming from the blower fan- the center D-shaped hub that connects to the motor shaft had snapped, causing the fan to wobble when running, not what was expected. Had to then place another order for the blower fan part, which was replaced along with a new belt, drum guides and new rollers. Cleaned out a lot of dust and lint, especially around the motor. Re-assembled, and now works like new.

I watched the instructional video-it was extremely helpful! I have no experience with taking apart or fixing a dryer, but the video showed me everything I needed to do. It took me 1-2 hours, but I think it only took so long because my dryer was disgusting inside (full of many years of lint and dog hair) and a lot of that time was spent cleaning it. I was thrilled that I only had to spend $20 (including shipping) and a couple hours and now it runs great! I looked up the model-it's from 1985! A new dryer is not something I'm excited to spend my money on, so now I'm going to come back to this website if anything else goes wrong and fix it myself!

Disconnect Power - Slide dryer away from wall to allow access to front & rear - Remove 2 screws on lower part of front panel - Slide small screwdriver under top cover to release 2 spring clips - remove front panel (disconnect 2 wires at the door switch) - remove 2 5/16 screws and remove lint trap & piping - lift tub and work the belt rearward as you remove tub - remove belt (make note of the belt routing) - use snap ring pliers to remove snap ring that retains Drum support roller - Remove and replace roller (there are 2 rollers, but usually only 1 needs replacing) - Reverse for assembly - (Note: you will need to remove the lower right hand cover (rear of dryer 2 1/4 screws) to gain access to the motor for belt installation)

Replace belt

I have never replaced a belt on anything before, but I did this mostly with ease.I watched the video and said " I can do this". Removed the front and the blower as instructed, removed the tub and belt, tried to put new belt on,had a problem,watched the video again, put the belt on pretty easy, then put it all back together and WOW, it worked. So easy any WOMAN can do it !!!

Advice: start by watching the excellent video on the PartSelect webpage re this heating element, not the way I started. My start: after pulling the dryer out into the room & removing the two access panels w/ nut drivers, I used an multimeter to (with difficulty) trace wiring and test the "accessible" thermostat mounted on the heater
shroud, and finally managed to get at the heater element terminals.
The heater element itself was open-circuit - what I had considered the least-likely point of failure. I went on PartSelect, found the heater assembly & element pages, and watched the video. Finally
pulled the front off the dryer, getting full access - how I should have started. Ordered the heating element (spring-coil of Nichrome wire)
rather than the entire heater assembly for two reasons: I could see that getting the thin sheet metal, two-part housing back into the distant punched-hole in the back plate would be the hard part, made very hard by any distortion of the cylinder, and anyway, lower cost.
I used a long extension bar on a socket to reach the single self-tapping screw holding a tab extending from the far end of the housing, and a nut driver to remove the self-tapping screw holding the front. I disconnected the wire to the thermostat, the wire directly to the heating element, and pulled out the heater assembly. Removed the screws holding the two halves of the housing together, opened it up, and photographed it with my cellphone. Decided to use the technique in the video which meant removing all the ceramic stand-off's supporting the heater wire. This required using pliers to make a slight twist of the part of each stand-off that sticks through to the outside of the housing. Also had to flatten the spring-tab that is intended to lock the stand-off in place. Used a very small flat screwdriver the tabs back out before reinstalling the stand-off's. Slid the loose stand-off's on the new heating element and started at one of the ceramic power terminals, looping the element and inserting the stand-off's as I went, stopping short of the end and starting the other side from the ceramic power terminal on that end. As expected, I had to do a lot of adjusting of the loops to get enough slack to insert the stand-off's at the far end and get the housing closed and screwed together without distorting it. Finally fit the heater assembly housing back in that distant punched hole, the hardest step, as expected. Slip the two power wires back on the terminals, test the two previously-inaccessible thermostats for continuity, the resistance of the heating element for something plausible, and reinstall the door switch wire to the slip-on terminals.
Reinstall the front of the dryer by hanging it back up at the top,
swinging it down, and replacing the two screws angled-up from the bottom corners of the front. Put something wet in the drum, plug it in, and "smoke test" the dryer. Worked great for me - but do watch the PartSelect videos.

When this dryer was given to me, I was told the door switch was going bad. It was originally purchased in 1996 as a REAL MAYTAG, so fixing it was no brainer, but the switch did not fix the problem. I pulled the small panel off the back to expose the motor and struggled to spin it by hand, so I assumed the motor was seizing up.

I entered the model number into this website and found a motor that would work and also decided to go with a belt and a fan. There was an installation video provided when I added the motor to my cart. The dryer was older than mine, but obviously identical on the interior. The only difference was that older dryer didn't have a little deflector shield that I have and I still can't remember where that goes. My dryer appears to be working just fine without it though.

Like the video stated:
Remove two screws at the bottom of the front panel to remove the panel while disconnecting the door switch wires. Since I had an old switch, I took the three wires and plugged them into that so I would remember where each one went .

I believe after that was the fan housing with a few bolts, then the drum. I reached through the small back panel to loosen the belt by moving the tensioner back, then removing the drum. The fan was secured by a snap ring and a spring loaded hose clamp that required a small set of pliers.

There were two bolts that held the motor in; once removed, the motor slid out with the bracket. The tough part was using the screwdriver to get the clamps off that hold the motor to the bracket, but the video helped with that.

The new motor did not come with instructions on how to wire it, so I had to go to this site and find somebody who had asked the question. The video did not do all that great a job in showing me where the wires go and since the motor was different than my REAL MAYTAG motor, I had no idea where the wires went, but I found someone who asked the question and he got the answer, so I was able to figure it out.

It had been over a month since I had taken the dryer apart so I went back to that video which, except for the wiring and that tiny little deflector plate, provided excellent detail of how to install everything. I had trouble deciding where I wanted the wires to make sure the drum didn't rub on them, so after it was all back together, I watched the drum rotate with the dryer running from that little panel in the back.

One thing that saved me was every time I took something off, I kept the bolts with that item. It only became a problem when my friend came over and saw the dryer in pieces. He just had to give me his own lecture about fixing dryers and when he talks he has touch everything, so all my bolts are going flying! I was like, "What are you doing? Are you gonna put this back together for me after you lose all my bolts?"

Unplugged dryer. Removed two screws and removed front of dryer disconnecting the wires from the front. Removed 4 screws and blue wire allowing the me to take the shroud off. Removed blower fan cover by taking out the screws and pulling down. Used pliers to take off clamp on blower fan and then had to use snap ring pliers to remove snap ring. Pulled blower fan off, replaced with new and put back on snap ring and clamp. Reinstalled blower cover, Removed drum by cutting belt (noted the direction of the belt around the idler pulley). Replaced belt (decided since I was going to be in the dryer and it is 14 years old I would replace belt as well) and drum. Reinstalled shroud and front cover. Dryer is very very quiet now.

After removing dryer front, remove several metal shields(ouch sharp!). Remove clamp and keeper ring and blower wheel. Then remember where all those screws came from. If I did it again I would put a spacer washer behind the blower wheel which is not in the original design. This might prevent this happening again.

My stack/washer dryer combo is 1994 vintage, so I discovered the hard way that the instructions on this site, on web videos and that came with the part miss a few points. Most notably, that there is no back panel to open to get to the motor easily to loop the belt around. Instead, after repeated failures to first loop around the drum and then thread around the motor spindle, I tried a different approach. It was just too hard from the front to hold everything in place and "feel" my way to thread it properly. So I tried doing the belt around the motor spindle and tensioner first, then getting the remaining big loop started around the drum, which I rolled to feed the rest of it around, eventually completing that. I then rolled to adjust the belt more toward the center of the drum. Once in the proper track I could tighten the drum in place. BTW, the electronics are not modular and easily unhooked and recooked up as in later models. Had to let connections lie open on washer top as I did the work. So in the process a soldered connection to dryer flame sensor (part # 63033770) fell off. Dryer would turn but not heat. Had to order that part and reconnect. Now all is good again. Clearly though, the days for my washer/dryer are numbered since fewer and fewer parts are available.