FER331AS1 Frigidaire Dryer - Instructions

Make sure you order a new belt and a new drum glide with the rear drum bearing assembly. If your bearing is worn out, so are the belt and drum glide!

1) Use a flat screw driver or putty knife to release the blind clips that hold the front side of the top of the dryer cabinet down
2) Swing dryer top up and remove two screws that hold the face of the cabinet.
3) Unplug the wiring harness and remove the cabinet face.
4) Remove the 3 screws that hold the drum to the bearing assembly (accessed from inside the drum. This makes it easier to remove the drum as the bearing assembly can be difficult to remove before you see how it snaps together
5) Reach under the drum and take the belt off the motor pulley, then remove the drum
6) Remove the old bearing assembly from the socket (slide up then out)
7) Remove the two screws that hold the bearing socket to the dryer
8) Fasten the new socket to the dryer (you'll need help doing this unless you have REALLY long arms because you have to reach inside the driver and the back of the dryer at the same time)
9) Grease the socket with the supplied high temp grease
10) Bolt the new bearing assembly to the drum and put the new belt around the drum
11) Put the drum back in and snap the bearing socket in and down
12) Guide the new belt around the motor pulley & tensioner
13) Glue the new drum glide / felt piece to the front cabinet
14) Put the cabinet back together

Had to pretty much disassemble the entire dryer. The schematics on the web site made it a snap to do. One word of advice. I you have to replace the rear drum assembly, the drum has to come out the front of the dryer. Part select made this a very positive experience.

I contacted a company to come out and diagnose the problem. They informed me that the thermal limiter is bad and needed to be replaced for $15 for the part and $85 labor. I found the part on this site for about $10, and did the repair myself. The dryer was mostly dismantled so I pulled the drum back, and replaced the part. The tricky part was the pulley system was, so make sure you see it before hand or find a diagram online. Once that was figured out, I set the drum back up, greased and tightened the pulley, reattached the front of the washer with connections, and closed the lid.

**I'd already installed a new rear drum bearing assembly (very simple) and the issue continued. Further testing (running unit with the drum removed) indicated the blower assembly and/or motor was the source as the issue only occurred when the unit was under load. I ordered both parts as there was simply no way the original blower assembly was coming off the original motor.** Disconnected Power. Removed Top and Front of Dryer. Removed Drum. Disconnected Wiring Harness at Motor. Disconnected Blower Housing Temperature Sensor. Pried Open Clip Holding Motor to Mounting Bracket. Removed All Other Mounting Hardware. Removed Original Motor and Blower Assembly. Mated New Blower Housing to New Motor. Mated Assembly to Mounting Bracket. Reinstalled Clip Holding Motor to Mounting Bracket. Reconnected Wiring Harness at Motor. Reconnected Temperature Sensor to Blower Housing. Installed All Other Mounting Hardware. Reconnected Power. Checked Assembly Alignment. No Issues Noted. Disconnected Power. Reinstalled Drum and Front of Dryer. Reconnected Power. Checked Assembly Alignment While Under Load. No Issues Noted. Reinstalled Top of Dryer. Issue is Resolved. ** Thoroughly cleaned entire unit including under the baffle located at the rear of the drum. Amazing amount of baked on lint located there. Checked heating element (no issues) and cleaned lint trap assembly in door of unit. Another area with an amazing amount of baked on lint. Total for all parts needed was $236.91. Total time needed was about 3 hours. Parts arrived within one day of order. Unit operates 'as-new'.**

It was simple, removed the start switch and replaced the knob.

The repair actually was quite easy but diagnosing the problem was another story. I found out that the dryer would not buzz and vibrate , if I just ran the fluff cycle but no heat. As soon as heat applied, the slight buzzing and slight vibrating would occur after a few minutes. I knew it wasn't the drum bearing, the drum rollers, the rubbing collar on front of drum, idle arm, belt, etc - I had replaced all of them less than a year ago. Anything I found on the internet dealing with the motor was always geared around not running or slow starting or shutting down, loud buzzing, needing a push start to start, etc but that was not the case. So I figured it was the blower housing and ordered that part. However, once I had the machine apart the blower housing seemed to be just fine - nothing obvious, everything tight. The one issue I had was removing the plastic nut with the metal insert on the blower unit that attaches it to the motor shaft which just wouldn't bulge. So I said to myself, the h*ll with it, lets get a new motor, too and remove both parts together which btw, was very easy. So that is exactly what I did. Now with new motor in hand and new blower housing in hand, I easily removed the old motor still attached to the old blower housing together and replaced both which was very easy. Hooked everything back up and no more soft buzzing or slight vibration. Now back to the problem or my guess at this point. I noticed that the rubber mounting bushing in the back of the motor which is used to attached it to the dryer bracket was funking looking - kinda soft and a bit perished. So I am surmising that once heat was introduced, it was enough to soften that bushing enough to cause the slight buzzing and slight vibration but without the heat to soften the bushing a bit, it was quiet and steady. Just a guess but for anyone that has this issue with just heat but no issue with fluff (no heat) check out the condition of that rubber mounting bushing on the rear of the motor. No where on the internet was there any info concerning the symptoms I had and I was flying by the seat of my pants. So am taking the time to get this on record in case someone else has these symptoms and finds it.

Tried to follow the directions of others but ran into a problem with getting the top panel off. This is how I did it.
1 Disconnect power and dryer vent tube. Move away from wall.
2 Remove slotted access panel in back of dryer and take belt off motor and idler pulley. Leave on drum.
3 Unscrew the screws on the back of the top panel brackets( mine are silver) where they screw into the back panel and pull up and to the back to get the top panel off. Someone else said to slide a putty knife in the front to release the top but my machine has no spring clips.
4 With the cover off you can see the two heat sensors and I tested them with a multi meter they registered 0 which meant they were OK.
5 Remove the screws that hold the control board on and the plugs that are wired into it making sure that you draw a diagram to remember the wiring. There was a zip tie that I cut to be able to feed the plugs through the hole in the front panel that the wiring must go when the front panel drops down.
6 Remove the screws on the top of the front panel and the screws on the inside of the side panel that hold the front panel secure.
7 A lot goes on on step 7 because the front panel which is hinged drops from the top down to the floor. Diagram and remove all wires there are two green ground wires on the side, Three wires on the door lock, two wires for the light and wires for a moisture sensor. When disconnected feed the control panel plugs and other wires through the hole in the front panel and lift up and out on the front panel it will pop out. Lower it to the floor and let it rest there.
8 Now you can get the drum out of the way by pulling up then out the front where the front panel is now on the floor. Leave the belt on it.
9 Diagram the wiring on the heating element there are connections for the element and the sensor. They gave me a new sensor screwed onto the new heating element. Then unscrew it from the back panel the screws are on the back of the machine.
10 Install is the reverse of the rip down

In hindsight I would have liked to have had the new part before I started the project because the wiring wasn't so fresh in my head a week later when it arrived even with diagrams. Over all it was very simple and took under two hours to complete. I did clean everything I could inside the machine and reglued a couple of the seals that had fallen loose. Works like new and probably went because of overheating with a clogged vent. Lesson... clean your dryer vent every year or sooner.

I don't think it would take others as long as it took me.
I had to take the drum out to get to the limiter. And my dryer is in a builtin housing with limited space in front of the dryer - so lots of manuevers to get access.

The limiter was very easy to find, thanks to diagrams on this site. The space between drum and limiter made it impossible to get to the limiter screws without removing drum. Found very helpful drum removal instructions on PartSelect here:

http://www.partselect.com/PS1148434-Frigidaire-134503600-Dryer-Drum-Belt.htm?SourceCode=13&ModelNum=FSE748GFS0

Great site - thank you.

Took off front panel, removed drum and replaced parts listed. A bit tricky to keep small parts in place. However, masking tape helped. Best of all was the online diagram of how the parts were assembled. In addition, taking step by step phone pixs aided in replacing parts since there was some down time between diagnosis and installation.

The repair was a bit more simple that what I had read here earlier, to see if I could handle it or I would have to call someone. The biggest relief was that I didn't have to remove any of the connectors from the control panel. Only 4 total connectors were removed at the Heating Element itself. Here's the steps I performed: 1) Pop the top off by prying the lid to release the 2 front clips and lift the top all the way up (like the hood of a car). Rest this against a door or wall. 2) Remove the rear access panel (2 phillips screws) on the bottom left of the unit. Remove the tension from the dryer belt and take it off the pully. 3) Go back to the front and remove (4 allen heads) from the back of the dryer drum. The drum should now have some play. 4) remove a plastic retainer that stops the drum from being lifted out. Now you should be able to lift out the drum. There is a ball & socket fitting that needs to come apart. This can be done by sharply lifting straight up. This gives you access to the heating element and you should be able to see where the coil has burned, thus opening the circuit. 5) remove (4 phillips screws) from the back panel of the dryer. Remove two pairs of connectors that attach to the heating element. Now it's out and you can begin the swap of the new element and reverse this process to put it back together. If I had to do this again, it would take less approx 30 minutes.

While changing power cable from 3 prong to 4 prong connection on a recently purchased used dryer I found the terminal block partially melted due to improper connectors which overheated. The bracket and cover were also missing which presented a shock hazard for anyone touching the exposed connections and there was no way to connect the strain relief. I disconnected the old 3 prong cable, removed the old terminal block, installed the new terminal block (required opening the dryer top for access), threaded power cable through bracket and fastened with strain relief leaving loose, attached the neutral/ground wires to middle terminal connection point, red to red wire in terminal block and black to black wire also in terminal block and tightened bracket and added cover.

watched video on replacing rear bearing.although rear bearing was not the part(s) i needed to replace, video instructed disassembly procedures to get to the drum glides. this was a very simple and easy to follow video. repair was a breezeand took roughly 25 minutes. the most time consuming segement of repair was vaccuuming out lint,that was 15 minutes. In future, as a preventative, i plan to remove front of machine to clean annually.
Thank you.

followed video and replaced part( cleaned and vacuumed dryer while I had it apart),relatively easy repair

my motor was making noise i tried to replace the motor but could not get the blower wheel off the motor so i had to buy a blower and housing assy. also... now it works great...

Motor replacement requires removing/releasing the top and front of the dryer, then removing the drum through the front of the dryer. The top is hinged at the rear and the front can be pried up. The front is held by two sheet metal screws that are accessible once the top is lifted up. Three screws hold the drum to the bearing at the rear of the drum. A small access door on the rear panel allows removal of the idler arm and its spring. You will need a socket drive with a short extension to remove the fan assembly from the motor at the front of the dryer, and it has a LEFT-HAND thread. The most difficult part of the replacement, once you figure out how to access everything, is getting the drum re-attached to the bearing at the rear of the drum. It can be hard to align the three screws, and once you have that done they need to be carefully tightened a few times after rotating the drum a few cycles, to get all the play out. Once the motor was replaced the dryer works like new.