Electrolux/Simpson/Westinghouse clothes dryer struggles to start spinning

Does your Electrolux, Simpson or Westinghouse clothes dryer sometimes not spin?

I've had this problem for a while on our previous Electrolux EDV505 and our current EDV605.

I have researched it and read that rear bearings, capacitors and belts are the usual causes.

It wasn't until I opened the dryer and removed the drum that I found the cause of the problem.

I always keep an eye out for people giving away these dryers when they break so I can get them for extra parts, as our dryer, which gets a lot of use, often breaks down.

So recently I was lucky enough to have two dryers that I had disassembled, to compare and try and work out what the problem is.

With the back panel removed it was easy to see that the drum on our dryer could not turn as freely as the drum on the spare dryer I had. The reason is the front bearings, which are some plastic support pieces and a circular padded strip that runs around the front door surround.

You can buy these parts new for about A$60. The part number is 0542377022.



I found it impossible to remove the old bearing parts without breaking them, but that doesn't matter if you are replacing them. They are clipped in and need to be pushed inwards before they will come out.

For our dryer, I removed the entire plastic frame from my parts dryer and swapped it into our "good" dryer. The result was that it was much better, but the parts dryer was pretty worn out so every now and then it still doesn't start.