Wednesday Weekly Stock: Dryer Elements

Every week at W.L. May we have several items we feature as good parts to consider adding to your stock. These parts also have special pricing available. For pricing details, ask your account representative for more information. This week we look at a variety of dryer elements.

The element in a clothes dryer gets lots of wear and tear. They go from room temperature, to red hot back, to room temperature, every time a load is done. The result is the element eventually will fail. Often this happens sooner than other parts on the appliance. When that happens, a call to W.L. May will get you help in finding a replacement.

Y303404

There a variety of elements that are used on clothes dryers. Often they cane be a restring coil, other times it is a complete assembly "complete with the can". A common Maytag dryer assembly uses a tube type of can. The part number is Y303404.

WE11X103

WE11M232

GE dryers have a different style of "in the can" element assemblies. Rather than fitting the elements into a tube, like the Maytag, GE has an assembly that sort of resembles a trash can lid. It fits behind the drum and can be replaced as an assembly or can be restrung. It is generally a bit easier to restring than a tube style of element assembly.

This week we feature two common assembly sizes, Parts WE11X103 & WE11M23. They are very similar. If you need help, call us with a model number and we'll help you sort it out.

WE11X203

WE11X10007

As I mentioned, GE makes restringing the element an easy option. In addition to complete elements we stock their restring kits. For the WE11M23 element, your restring kit is part number WE11X10007. It gives you a restring coil and the needed element insulators.

For the WE11X103 element, the restring element is part WE11X203. This restring kit DOES NOT come with insulators. If the insulators in your WE11X103 element are in need of repair, unfortunately the restring kit will not work for you. In that case, replace the whole element assembly.

279838

Whirlpool does not sell their dryer elements "in the can" and they don't use a restring kit either. Instead, their models have a sub-assembly that then is mounted into the element can. For many years, it was simple. All the Whirlpool dryers used the same element. This made identifying a replacement easy. Things aren't so simple theses days.

The old Whirlpool dryers elements featured coils wrapped onto a wire frame. The first variation Whirlpool introduced was fairly different  in that instead of a wire frame, this element comes mounted on a metal plate. The part number for this element is 279838.

3387747

More recently, Whirlpool introduced another element that is in wide circulation. Also mounted on a plate, the 3387747 element is threaded in a sort of figure-8 like pattern that makes it fairly distinctive.

5300622032 & 5300622034

To complete a circuit of the "big three" appliance makers, we need to include dryer elements from Electrolux. We have 2 of them featured this week. These are restring coils for Electrolux dryers with rear of drum element cans. The part 5300622032 is a 3/16" coil and the 5300622034 is a slightly thicker 1/4".

             For more education and entertainment from W.L. May Company click...HERE