Whirlpool WP697772 Dryer Blower Wheel OEM Part

I wanted to avoid pulling the drum. Luckily, my blower was easily accessed by pulling the front bottom panel. A couple of sheet metal screws were all I needed to remove the fan housing cover. I knew the fan was on reverse threads, i.e. righty-untighty. As it spins it tightens so no need for a retaining nut. I took off a screw holding on the exhaust tube and wiggled it out. I found the broken teeth inside. With the tube out of the way I was able to slide a crescent wrench in back and place it on the end of the back shaft. It wasn't a true nut, more a flange but with some positioning I got the crescent to stay on. Now, just turn the fan left and it should spin off. No. Like I said, it tightens as it spins so it was on there. I tried 'shocking' it with a few hammer raps, WD 40, my most creative curse words. It wouldn't budge and I was reluctant to force it for fear of damaging the shaft. I ended up using a Dremel tool and cut the plastic fan off. I was left with the metal center of the fan that screwed on to the shaft's threads. Carefully I cut that until I was able to peel it off the threads. I spun the new fan on and put things back together. The dryer is nice and quiet again. In the end, did I save any time or work accessing it from the front? Probably not but it was not a question of how much work, but of what type of work did I want to do. I love the Dremel and am fairly handy with it. I've opened appliances before and it is tedious with all the screws and pulleys and belt threading, plus I always manage to cut myself up on the sheet metal. So, pick your poison. In the end it's all work but not hard or impossible. Saved time and money and got that accomplished feeling DIY's live for. Hang in there, you can do it. Oh yeah, APPros were fast and accurate and the best price I found. They also took care to send me status updates on my shipping. It felt like they were as concerned about my repair as I was.

The blower wheel had separated from the threaded insert. This poses two problems in the beginning. How much of the dryer I have to disassemble to get the wheel off, and will the wheel be able to be removed with it in place? 1) Take as much of the dryer as you can apart. Remove up to the drum so that you can access the housing that encloses the blower wheel. For the model MEDX700XL0 Maytag that requires removing the top, the front lower and front upper covers. Most of this can be taken care of with a quarter inch drive socket and a phillips head screwdriver. You will need a star bit for the top two screws of the front cover that are covered by the top. I would have videoed this but there was far to much cursing involved. Once you are to the drum removal get it out of the way and then you will be able to access the motor shaft that mounts the blower wheel. In my case since the wheel had separated from the insert you will need to cut the wheel out of the way so that you can access the insert. I used a dremel tool with a cutting ball mill to work my way around the wheel spines so as too remove the wheel. Also the same procedure will need to employed to get the remainder of the wheel off of the insert. Once you have accessed the insert you will be able to use an adjustable wrench to hold the shaft in place while you utilize pliers or vise grips to remove the insert from the shaft. Once the insert is removed you are are home free except to reassemble what you took apart. This is not a difficult task, just time consuming and requires patience. I place it as difficult as if you watch any of the videos available they do not address this model of dryer, nor the challenges entailed with getting this blower wheel off. This is irritating as not all dryers are assembled nor disassembled the same, so lets not assume that they are in our videos. In the end $50 for the wheel and a few hours of work was well worth not having to purchase a replacement dryer. Be methodical in your disassembly and reassembly and have everything on hand at the start and this will go fairly smoothly.

Checked thermal fuse, belt pulley switch, door switch, and motor windings (primary 2.3 ohms start 2,2 ohms). Called Appliance Pros, told them my problem. They said that it appears to be the motor even though the ohm readings seam Ok and that I could return the motor if it was not the problem. I ordred the motor and blower wheel. Installed the new motor and everything worked! The only difficult part was that the motor blower had to be chiseled out. Their motor repair video was a great help.

Replaced the motor and blower wheel. I couldn't get the motor out without disconnecting the blower wheel so I had to break it off using a chisel because it wouldn't loosen. 10 yr old dryer. Cleaned out a ton of lint inside the dryer and old motor. Too much lint build up in the motor likely damaged it.

The video was great and I changed the four rollers, pulley and belt in about an hour. I think it took longer to give the dryer a good cleaning than the repair took. After I replaced the rollers I still had some noise from the dryer and discovered the blower wheel was worn out and wobbled on the shaft. Another video and another repair. It was a little difficult since the blower wheel would not unscrew with the 1/2 inch ratchet since it spun freely on the shaft. The advice about breaking the wheel off worked great and now the dryer works like it did when it was new 12 years ago.