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jawalter
02-14-2007, 08:18 AM
I have been using your website to help me troubleshoot my dryer. Thank you for all the great information.

I was wondering if I could ask your opinion regarding a problem that I'm having with my dryer.

I have a Maytag DG882 gas dryer that is ~19 years old. I have been working on it for the last 3 weeks to correct the following problem.

Problem - "The dryer valve gas coils only seem to work when they are cold."

I have performed the following tasks and replaced the following parts on my dryer:

Replaced Parts:
new ignitor bar
new gas valve
new coils (4 new sets)
new cycling thermostat
new radiant heat sensor
removed and cleaned motor
removed and cleaned centrifugal switch contacts

Well after all of this work, the problem remains.

When I first turn the dryer on, after it hasn't been running for a few hours, with a load of wet clothes the gas valves will open and the ignitor bar will successfully ignite the gas. The burner will stay on for ~25 minutes. I guess it takes about 25 minutes with a load of wet clothes for the cycling thermostat to reach 140F. After the first 25 minute burn, the secondary gas valve won't fully open anymore. Sometimes I get a weak flame for a few seconds and then the flame goes out. The ignitor bar cycles on and off without secondary coil opening the gas valve. I'm pretty sure that the holding/boost coil is working okay. If I stop the dryer and replace the secondary coil with one of my "cold" spare secondary coils the dryer will work again. What the heck is going on? I can't believe the I bought 4 new sets of defective coils. Two of the new coil sets came from pcappliancerepair.com and the other two new coil sets came from a local appliance parts dealer. Any thoughts? This dryer problem is starting to get the best of me.

richapplyguy
02-14-2007, 09:14 AM
Sticky problem for sure. But you must make measuerements. Get an amprobe and measure the ignitor current. It just might be marginal, say below 3 amps. If so you might have a burnt wire somewhere or an ignitor going sour.
Also measure the voltage to the ignitor, should be 125 v. Please post results otherwise we are just drifting in the wind here.