Tom McQuinn wrote:
I have a Kenmore electric dryer. It was starting to take a long time to
dry a load of clothes. After searching Google groups for answers, I
spent a torturous afternoon cleaning the 4 inch vent (from middle of the
house with two 90 degree turns). I never did get the flexible vent
brush all the way through but I do believe I finally crushed all the
lint together from each side. Then when I jammed rags around an
electric leaf blower nozzle and blew out the clogs they left an ejecta
trail 20 feet into the yard. At this point the exhaust vent honestly
seems pretty clear. When I go outside the airflow feels practically as
strong as it does straight out of the dryer.

It is working a whole lot better but still doesn't work as well as it
used to. It seems to get hot enough. But the timer advances before the
clothes are dry. If not for this I think you could put a full load into
it and come back to find dry clothes.

Thankfully, Sears has exploded drawings available:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M25D12DDC

And the legend:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?V58D21DDC

In reading through the dryer troubleshooting section of repairclinic.com
I see a reference to the timer only advancing when the unit reaches the
proper temperature (seems hot enough to me) AND the moisture sensor
tells it that the clothes are drying.

When I look at the exploded drawing, item 34 (very top of the drawing,
center of the page) is called 'electrode sensor'. Does anyone know if
this is a moisture sensor and, if so, do you think it could be worn out?
Dirty? Time to cough up the cash for a service call?

I do know that the timer did not used to advance this way. It might
have run a long time if you were drying something big and heavy but when
it stopped the load would be dry.

If I'm on the wrong track here, thanks in advance for any ideas that
might help me get this machine working well again.

Tom

It is hard to make out the components without the key relating to the
numbers, but from your description I would look to see if there were two
heating elements paralleled. One of them opening up might very well
give you the results you describe.