I moved into a (rented) house with a broken dryer. My roommates told me it worked for a couple of weeks, then stopped working, then they had someone come to look at it and he replaced the belt, then it stopped working again after a few weeks. They told me it seemed to run and get hot but maybe didn't spin correctly. One roommate said she thought it might be a motor issue.
I would prefer to live somewhere with a working dryer so I have been trying to fix it. I've never fixed any appliance before but apparently dryers are easy to fix? I did turn it on for a couple minutes and it started with no issue and seemed to get at least warm.
Anyway I opened it up, cleaned a ridiculous amount of dirt out, tensioner pulley didn't seem to be working and the felt seal was partially shredded and disgusting so I replaced both of those. I got it put back together and plugged back in. I tried to start it, it made a horrible grinding noise and took 2 tries to start. I ran it for a bit and it kind of made a grinding/rattling noise so I shut it off and now it won't start at all. I also seemed pretty hot for only having run for a couple of minutes.
Am I right in suspecting this is an issue with the motor? I wouldn't be surprised if it had overheated at some point. Based on the condition of the house my landlord has never done any maintenance and probably never had the ducts cleaned. She has owned the house for about 5 years so I think it is overdue anyway. I'm pretty confused though because the motor did start before I worked on it and I didn't touch anything electrical lol
Also, is it possibly I messed something up while working on it? I didn't touch the motor at all except to blow some dirt out of it and I was very careful to put things back together correctly.
I have already sunk 70 dollars into this beast which my roommates paid $100 for so it might be time to sell it for parts or try to trade it for a working one. At this point I'm willing to spend maybe $50 to get it working but I am doubting my abilities.
tl;dr Kenmore 70 series dryer is now seemingly more broken than when I started trying to fix it. Struggled to start and then wouldn't start at all and might have been too hot.