Burnt resistor in dryer harness - need help diagnosing problem

Hi all,

My dryer wasn’t working properly yesterday and I could smell something burning. I opened it up and saw that the resistor in the dryer harness was fried. What is the recommended way to diagnose the problem? Do some voltage checks? The other abnormal thing besides the burnt resistor is an unusual noise coming from the timer. I have no idea what that indicates though. Does cleaning out the vents and replacing the resistor sound like a good start before jumping to the timer or am I off base here? Any help would be appreciated.

hpizzle12 said:
Hi all,

My dryer wasn’t working properly yesterday and I could smell something burning. I opened it up and saw that the resistor in the dryer harness was fried. What is the recommended way to diagnose the problem? Do some voltage checks? The other abnormal thing besides the burnt resistor is an unusual noise coming from the timer. I have no idea what that indicates though. Does cleaning out the vents and replacing the resistor sound like a good start before jumping to the timer or am I off base here? Any help would be appreciated.

Here is a picture of the dry-harness showing the resistor:

http://imgur.com/RaW8Q3N

I cannot find tech info on this unit so cannot be 100% sure of anything.

If the resistor is connected ti the timer motor then you are on the right track.

Often when a dryer is in a timed dry mode it gets voltage direct. this is L1 to Neutral voltage (120 volts).
In auto mode the circuit id different. The timer gets voltage through the heater when the heater is off. This is L1 to L2 voltage (240 volts).
The resistor then drops this voltage to 120 to power the timer motor.

Could be that there is a problem with the timer motor and it is pulling too much current causing the resistor to overheat.