Kenmore propane dryer 11076132410 replacing drum support shafts, lube or not?

[reezekeys]

Hi, I'm back again with a Q about my dryer. A while back I posted how a cheap Ebay drum roller disintegrated after a few months. I decided to replace most of the drivetrain with OEM parts and just yesterday received the last piece in my shipment. I got the kit with belt, idler, rollers and belt, then decided to get new roller support shafts too.

In my past two threads here where I asked for help, I've gotten some conflicting info as to whether the rollers should go on the shaft with any lubrication or not. One person said "no oil, it just attracts lint", which I saw with my own eyes (I had used a tiny bit the first time my old rollers started squeaking). Another person said "lightly spray them" but didn't specify with what.

I know there are many kinds of lubricating products: lithium grease, teflon powder, graphite power, etc. etc... Seeing as I'm getting a "fresh start" with all-new OEM parts, I'd like to do this right and maximise their lifespan. This dryer gets a lot of use. Do I really put these rollers on completely dry, no lubrication of any kind? Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Terry Carmen]

That's a really hard question.

The old rollers from 10+ years ago had bronze bearings that were impregnated with oil and the shafts were harder and there was no need to oil them and if you did, the oil tended to get gunked up.

However the new rollers are different. Harder, I think and not very well lubricated and the shafts seem softer and a different metal, so I definitely lube the cheap non-oem parts with "zoom spout oil" (just a light lubricating oil), and also lube the OEM parts if I spin them and they're noisy when new. 

This isn't based on anything in particular except my assumption that new rollers shouldn't be noisy.

[reezekeys]

Thanks, that makes sense. But here's something I don't get. Below is one of the OEM rollers I got from searspartsdirect. It's one solid piece – the inner surface that contacts the shaft is not "rolling" on any bearings that I can tell. Maybe I'm not getting the correct meaning of "bearings" in this case, but I think of something like a clutch throwout bearing – a rotating part that rides on ball bearings sealed inside it. I don't detect that here.

The other issue is that even the crappy non-OEM rollers didn't make noise at first. They worked great... for a few months! Thanks for your quick reply!

[Terry Carmen]

2 hours ago, reezekeys said:

Maybe I'm not getting the correct meaning of "bearings" in this case, but I think of something like a clutch throwout bearing – a rotating part that rides on ball bearings sealed inside it. I don't detect that here.

The other issue is that even the crappy non-OEM rollers didn't make noise at first. They worked great... for a few months! Thanks for your quick reply!

The thing with the hole is the bearing. It used to be made out of something called "oilite". There never were and are not now any ball bearings in the dryer roller.

However now they appear to be some sort of other metal and don't seem to be lubricated, or at least not well. 

> They worked great... for a few months!

Since I've been lubricating them I haven't had any callbacks, although that doesn't mean much since customers don't seem to notice the noise until it's pretty horrible.

[reezekeys]

Thanks Terry! I’m in Lowe’s right now (mom & pop hardware stores close at 5 here), looking for that zoom spout oil. The only thing they have that seems close is this, what do you think?

[Terry Carmen]

Probably not it, although I've never tried silicone. 

I use a lightweight lubricating oil. If they don't have anything in a squirt bottle, WD40 seems to work well

[reezekeys]

Ok, well I’m into leaving as little to chance as possible. My wife will have to wait another day for the dryer to get fixed! I’ll hit a real hardware store tomorrow. Thanks for your good advice!

[16345Ed]

I never lube them. Attracts dust and lint. 
 

I shine them up with steel wool. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by 16345Ed

[reezekeys]

Great, two conflicting opinions on what to do... ha ha, well I guess I'm on my own! 

I don't know. I'm certainly not a mechanical engineer but it seems weird to me that you can have a dryer drum filled with heavy, wet laundry, putting a lot of weight on these rollers that are spinning around, with the actual bearing surfaces being only bare metal with no lubrication - is there not some friction going on here? I had in mind putting just a teeny tiny application of the zoom spout oil (which I just got at a hardware store) on the shafts - like, a quick swipe with a q-tip slightly moistened with oil. I know that oil attracts dust & lint. I saw that the last time I was inside my dryer, when I put some 10W-30 Mobil 1 on the shafts to get a few days or weeks of squeak-free operation until new rollers arrived (it was the only oil I had!). I might have used more than I should then.

Still, thanks for the input guys - any tips from the experts are always appreciated!

[reezekeys]

Ok after consulting "the google" a bit, I'm getting a little more clarity on these bearings - yes, they are supposedly bronze, sort of "pre-loaded" with oil that releases as they encounter friction. It sure doesn't seem like there's anything special about what I see inside the "hole" of these bearings though. I thought bronze was a copper-ish colored metal, these look more like plain steel. Has their design changed or are these still "self-oiling"? Seeing how I got all that lint before, I decided to not oil them.

[evaappliance]

trial and error ,  i do not believe there is a wrong answer. 

[Terry Carmen]

That's about all you can do. I don't think anybody really knows.

Back when they were bronze it was easy because the bearing was a known documented thing. They were called oilite bearings.

Then they changed the metal to something that looks like steel and I don't think anybody actually knows what it is and there's no real documentation on what to do with them.

[reezekeys]

It's actually pretty funny... a quick google search turned up a few forums where this subject was being hotly debated! I didn't realise how contentious it is!

Of course this job took me most of the day and as with all my amateur attempts at home repair, I wound up having to go to the hardware store. I think my wife threw out the bag with those plastic "tri-clips." I had a few from a previous order of the "Ebay special" rollers, but they were so damn brittle they broke as I tried to get them on. Actually, those f&^*%g clips have always given me the most trouble the few times I've installed rollers - the youtubes sure make it look easy to get them on and off though!

I went to the best-stocked Tru Value hardware store near me - they had bever seen these things! I wound up getting E-clips. I brought one of the old support posts with me and we found a metric one that fit really well - snapped into place very securely. If there is any reason why this might not be a good solution, please someone chime in and I'll find & install those horrible plastic suckers! Thanks as always for the insights & advice!

 

[ABA Tech]

On 5/16/2021 at 5:15 PM, Terry Carmen said:

Probably not it, although I've never tried silicone. 

I use a lightweight lubricating oil. If they don't have anything in a squirt bottle, WD40 seems to work well

Just a heads up that WD40 (the standard blue bottle) is not a lubricant.

[Terry Carmen]

2 hours ago, ABA Tech said:

Just a heads up that WD40 (the standard blue bottle) is not a lubricant.

The US formula contains 35% petroleum-based oil and some solvents.

[Quick]

On 5/16/2021 at 12:17 PM, reezekeys said:

Do I really put these rollers on completely dry, no lubrication of any kind? Thanks in advance for any advice!

Come on man. Them parts are cheap and the job is easy. What's it matter?

 

[reezekeys]

On 6/2/2021 at 11:03 PM, Quick said:

Come on man. Them parts are cheap and the job is easy. What's it matter?

 

Wow I wasn't expecting any more action in this thread, but I guess I was wrong. Sorry to make a big deal out of this, I just had no idea these were made out of "pre-oiled" metal. As I said a few posts above, after getting a little better-educated I put them on without lubrication. They seem to be doing just fine and the dryer is humming along making no squeaking noises like before. It's all good! And yes the parts are cheap and the job easy but it took a month to get the OEMs from Sears.

[vallen513]

You were thinking of ball bearings, this is what is called a sleeve bearing. Do you have to oil them, no.  What actually goes wrong with these that chews them up? Usually a small grain of grit or sand gets in there and chews them up. You could put a little axle grease on the shaft, on the part where the roller does not roll, to help catch this debris.  On most scenarios, I would say no grease or oil. Put them on dry, and let them roll.   If you think about it, if they required oil, you would have to do a maintenance dose now and then. Most dryer rollers can go 10+ years with no type of maintenance.

[reezekeys]

Thanks for this explanation. We got our dryer new after a house fire. The original rollers started making noise this past December; we got five years out of them. My wife uses the dryer almost every day, and always super-long "sanitize" cycles (around 1:30 long at high heat), so I'm not surprised they failed early – then again, five years is quite a lot less than the "10+" you mention. 

The Ebay non-OEMs did not last long though - I have another thread here with a pic of the roller that got completely chewed up after a month of use!

Thanks also for that tip on where to put the axle grease, that makes sense.