“DADDDDDDD!!!”
The anger was not veiled, the shout not unintentional. I knew what was coming.
“This freakin' dryer ate more of my clothes! Look at this, LOOOOK!!!”
“I’m guessing it’s not supposed to look like that.”
She was not amused by this statement. The twisted and torn remains were a shirt of some type but it may has well be a handful of rags from my shop. They were at least clean rags.
“Please fix it. Fix this dryer. The murders have to stop.” She stormed off past Monica who had wandered out from the kitchen to see what the commotion was about. With a raised eyebrow and muddled expression she gave me the “I told you about this three months ago look” and proceeded with an exaggerated and twisted slide back into the kitchen to continue making sugar cookies with the twins.
Resigned to fix this beast of a machine—a 10-ish year old LG DLEX3470W—its twisted and broken lint trap mocking me, a little digging pulled up the proper part numbers for the LG dryer model in question. Further digging through part suppliers I was able to locate the parts—matching pictures with the parts in our dryer no less. I added to cart and checked out, puzzled as to why I had not done this three months ago.
A week later as the parts arrived and I started the install I remembered why.
Turns out the part assembly fits but the parts are mismatched because of a revision. Which is to say the part numbers match but the versions do not because there is no version. Because sure, that makes total sense.
After installing the new front assembly—which had developed some sort of claw that seemed to grab clothes to eat—and installing the new lint filter—which the claw had bent into a twisted form that itself hook and twist clothes, I ended up with an ill-fitting mess.
As the above photograph shows, that doesn’t seat into the front assembly. A quick glance at the old front assembly and we can see notches for the seating of the lint filter.
And if we look at the new version, no notch.
Same part numbers. Different parts. Different non-fitting parts.
“You know that doesn’t fit right?” said the teenager, a sly smirk on her face and armfuls of clothes destined for the washing machine.
“Oh, it’s going to fit.”
Sure I could have called that parts place, went back and forth to get the correct version that doesn’t have a version and end up shuffling parts for weeks. No, sometimes you just have to enjoy paying $50 for a part that you’re now scoring with a awl and headed to the bandsaw to chop.
The bandsaw whirled to life with an unexpected dull orange spark from a piece of previous steel cut. I realized at that point I still had the still broken lint filter which meant I could get this right with a test cut. I dropped it onto the tab and cut the tabs and did a quick dry fit. Pretty close overall, so I cut the final brand new piece leaving behind tiny plastic nibs.
The proof is in the fitting they say and it was a pretty clean overall fit.
I eventually cleaned it up and smoothed a few edges with a file to make sure I wouldn’t end up with clothes getting hooked. This was not an earth shattering fix or workaround but there was much rejoicing after a couple of weeks of no clothes based murders.
I am however running short on shop rags at this point.