I GOT IT WORKING!!!!

For almost a year now the dryer portion of our Splendide 2000 has not worked.  It has been on my 'TO DO' list for that long.  If we still lived in our 'sticks and bricks' home it would just be a matter of pulling the unit out of its spot in the garage, turning it around and opening it up to see if it was something I could fix.  Pulling it out of its designated spot in our coach is a whole 'nother discussion.  To even get access to begin to pull it out of its cubby hole I have to remove everything in the pantry, remove the shelves, then remove both doors, and the door framing on the right side.  This involves the removal of about 20 screws......

.....once all of that is out of the way then one can begin slowing working the washer/dryer unit out......  

The splendid "Splendide" just prior to removal

.......I suspected a problem with the 'dryer fan assembly' since we were getting no airflow out the dryer vent, so to get a look at that I would need to take off the back and the top, which meant it had to be completely removed from its compartment......

The heater blower

With TLE's help we had the Splendide removed and sitting on four 4 X 4's in the middle of the kitchen.  Getting the back and top off involved the removal of 7 screws and then there it was.....the 'heater fan assembly'.  As I turned the fan I could hear something scraping inside the assembly.  Ultimately it appeared that a small bushing/spacer had slipped, so I repositioned it, and then added a little '3 in 1' oil to the shaft, then turned on the dryer.......it worked!  Within seconds hot air was coming out the vent at the back of the dryer and we were back in business.  No doubt the fan may be failing, but for now it is running smoothly again with no scraping sound.

It took us about an hour to re-install the Splendide, put the shelving and the doors back on, and then re-stock the pantry.  Over the last 5 years we have used the dryer more than the washer part, mostly to dry our bath towels after a shower.....especially when we find ourselves in more humid and/or cold climates.  We have relied heavily upon the washer/dryer when working at Amazon, Indy 500 and Sugar Beet Harvest as we never had time to visit the laundromat, so it is good to have everything back and working.  In the mean time I am going to source a replacement dryer fan assembly in anticipation of it failing for good sometime in the future.  Now that we have actually removed the Splendide I feel much more confident I can work on it in the future.  From beginning to end it took us between 4 and 5 hours to get the job done, and by the time that was done it was around 1500 hours.

On an interesting side note about 7 years ago I became acquainted with Steve Ward who had recently purchased a 1982 Newell that looks like the twin of mine.......

Steve's 1982 Newell (38')

Our Newell (36')

.....they look a lot alike, right?  Now here is something very cool.....Steve and I compared VIN tags yesterday.....the first one below is Steve's and the second is mind.......ours were both manufactured in March of 1982, and our VIN #'s are one digit apart.....

Steve's

Ours

.....Steve's ends is 1007 and mine 1008!  On top of that the first owners of our coaches both had the same last name........Law.  What are the odds they were not related?  Anyway, I thought that was interesting.

Thanks for stopping by!