7MKGDS400DW0 Kenmore Dryer - Instructions

Removed top cover. Removed front cover. Removed Drum. Located the broken belt. Found that there was no tensioner in the unit. Replaced drum rollers. Put in new tensioner. Repaced Drum with belt around it. Installed belt through tensioner and onto drive pully of motor. Supported Drum with wood block. Turned on dryer to insure drum turned without any problems. Removed wood block. Replaced front cover and top cover. Repair compete.

Opened up every panel EXCEPT the front, then discovered how easy that is. Replacement belt was a snap to install. I noticed some plastic collar thing on the driveshaft appeared to have melted. Did not appear to be critical part, so I put it together and tested it out. Seems to work fine. I think the collar is there to prevent the belt from potentially slipping off the driveshaft.

I had two dryers, one was gas and the other was electric. The electric stopped heating. So I rolled out the gas dryer, but it was setup for natural gas and at this location, I only have propane. So I changed the jets to work with propane, in the process I broke the igniter, so I replaced that and that made the propane one work. Armed with the knowledge from that job, I took the electric dryer apart located the thermostat and replaced that and low and behold I have two working dryers. One for now and one for an emergency. I only have four screws left over!!!! Jim Cooke

1. Popped off hinged dryer lid at front and supported to allow access to lint chute
2. Removed back sheet metal panel
3. Removed dryer chute to expose sensor; removed same-deformed terminal on top needs to be straightened with pliers to remove through slot.
4. Installed new sensor; terminal needs to be twisted to ensure solid installation and good ground. Bottom pops in but took a bit of finagling.

Accessing and replacing the sensor was straightforward enough; bulk of the job was cleaning off old gasket material (severely degraded) in two locations. Used plastic scraper and razor blade scraper, then cleaned sticky with goo gone. Installed new gasket strip from Home Depot; available in rolls. I used 1/4" x 3/8". Surprising how much lint/hair/debris was in bottom of lint chute. Glad to get it all clean.

Had a problem holding drum in place and putting front back on. Got it together and drum wouldn't turn. Had to tear it a part again and belt had turned.

Very difficult for one person, trying to get the belt engaged into the motor pulley and the idler pulley at the same time. Trying to overcome the tension of the heavy spring on the idler was the main problem, while coping with the small working space with the drum in place. Solved all the problems by removing the drum (for the 3rd time) and making a piece of wood to wedge in against the outside wall of the machine to hold back the spring loaded idler. Then slipped the drum back in place and gently slid the belt around the drum. Then reached in under the drum and slipped the wood piece out while making sure the belt remained on the pulleys. If I had the wood idea at the start, it would have been about a half hour job. Good luck, and don't pinch your fingers.

pulled dryer away from wall took screws out of lint screen lift top removed 2 screws one on each side of front at top and removed front panel. pulled belt off drum removed drum rollers tension pulley and while i was at it pulled back cover off of heating element and blower blew everything out with air hose did a total cleaning installed everything in reverse. i was amazed how fast the parts came the dryer was only down 2 days and it runs like new even if it is 20 years old i highly recommend parts slect and i will use them in the future

Ignor installation video. it is for a different model dryer. The part is not accessed from rear. It is accessed from the front panel. Disconnect power. Remove two screws below front panel with cross head screwdriver. Swing panel up until it releases. No need to disconnect wires just put front panel down beside the dryer. Thermostat located right in front on duct easy to identify since it has four leads. Remove wires with needle nose pliers. Remove thermostat with nut driver. Contacts are labeled but hard to read. Hold thermostat so the lead number 3 (the 3 will be upside down) is on the left. Connect blue wire. White wire to top. Purple wires to bottom and right. Reverse removal procedure and you are done.

the video was very well done and able to understand. disconnect power ,remove lint trap,remove 2 phillps head screws, push putty knife in front seam line about 1'' in from corners to release top assembly ,lift up and support, disconnect wire connector ,remove 1 screw in each front corner lift front panel off while holding drum, remove broken belt,install new belt with grooves against drum ,feed around tensioner pulley and onto motor shaft pulley ,spin drum by hand to make sure belt tracking etc. reassembly in reverse.

Grown daughter did the repair following instructions on your site........Unplug, take screws out of top by lint filter and with putty knife pry up top panel and lean back. Unplug elec. harness in front corner. A screw on each side of front panel removes that. Get old belt off and then we vaccumed all the lint from under and around drum. Put new belt around drum making sure not twisted and pull pulley as shown to make tight......... would have taken less time but we vaccumed all the lint from under and around the drum. Anyone could do this......

Once we realized we needed to take the FRONT off the dryer, not the back all went well. It was an easy fix and the part fix perfectly. Instead of $60 or more for a repairman, we spent less than $20 fixing the dryer.

remove back of dryer and install part same as old part was installed

watched your video on 'how to' and did it like man showed..no problem

We had to pop open the top. Unscrew front of dryer from sides. Disconnecting the wires was a bit more difficult than expected. We had to use a tiny screwdriver to slide into the sides of the white wire connector on each side before pulling apart. Front drum falls when front of dryer is removed. It took two of us to reassemble - one to hold the drum while the other put the front on. Our problem turned out to be one wheel. We replaced both wheels and saved the rest of the parts. Hums along just fine.

Removed back cover. Removed old timer and connected wiring to the new one. Installed new timer and put the back cover back on.