Whirlpool WPY311013 Motor Belt OEM Part

The belts were very easy to change through the back of the machine. The heating element was a bit more involved. I basically had to disassemble the entire machine. The heating element is located on the front panel of the machine surrounding the door. You have to remove the rear panel, the top panel and loosen both side panels from the bottom pan, 6 screws. Then you slide the 2 sides and front panel (all still attached) a few inches forward so that you can access the screws that secure the side panels to the front panel. You can access some of the screws from the top and the other screws from the door opening. Once the front panel is loosened, remove it and the heating element is very accessible. Replace the element and reassemble in reverse order. Make sure that you take some pictures of the wires you remove along the way so that reassembly goes smoothly.

I took the back off and sure enough, found one broken belt and another well worn and stretched one. Ordered replacements from both here and when I put them on and attached the spring, I noticed the motor belt was a bit loose even though the drive belt was tight. I also noticed a fair amount of side play in the idler, but it seemed to turn the drum. Put it all back together and it worked, at least empty. My wife notified me about 15 minutes later, "you know that dryer you fixed still doesn't work, it won't turn a load of wet laundry". I took it apart again and took another look, yep, just like I left it, motor belt was just too loose, I'm was now sure the motor belt isn't getting properly tensioned with the spring. Probably something to do with all the side play in the idler. After studying how the spring was pulling on the belts, I ended up moving the bottom attachment of the spring from the bottom of the dryer to the lower screw hole on the lower right side that's supposed to hold the back on. This changed the angle of the spring tension which further enhanced the tightening the motor belt. This time, I had to hold on two the dryer body with both hands while my son stretched and attached the spring, everything was nice and snug now and there was still a little bit of play in the tension system. So far, so good, the wife gave it her seal of approval! After all it is just a 20 year old back up dryer in the pool room, come on, it ought to work another 20 now, huh?

Replaced belts per instructions sent with them. No instruction on replacing tension spring. Must be done after moving reduction pulley down all the way before attaching either belt to it. That way you only have to stretch spring about one inch to reattach it.

Used a video, made it very simple.

Replaced them