I had to find Plain Old Varnish which is a PITA these days~! Finally found it but when I went to check the railing I found a big freaking hole in a post where a Woodpecker went to town~! So I had to cut a round piece of word with a hole saw and do a little filing with a wood rasp. I used Gorilla Glue waterproof which expands so when it dries a quick hit with a scraper and should be done.
Sucks that basic things can be so hard to come by. And woodpeckers can be nuts, I've got a few who have found metal poles and go to town on them. Doesn't give him much food but makes a helluva racket lol. Sounds like you got it patched up.
On a side track, you seem like a handy soul so maybe I could ask and see what you think. I've got a compact 110v electric clothes dryer. Turned it on with a load of wet clothes, ran for like 3-4 min and abruptly stopped. Along with a delicious burnt smell and some smoke drifting out the vent pipe. Tore the back off it and have the drum out of it. The wire that melted in half was right at the inline fusible link, possible also referred to as a thermal fuse? Dunno, it's got a wire lead on either side fitted to a plastic housing that screws together. Inside is a tube style 20a fuse.
So one wire coming into the fusible link attaches with a factory crimp (insulated) directly to a black wire coming into the unit from the wall plug/wire, main power cord. The other side leaves out, crimps up with an insulated crimp to a brown wire headed for the door open/closed switch. Leaves the door switch and heads via another wire to one side of the high limit thermostat. So must be the main power to the heating element, broken by various safeties. The thermostat should it overheat at the heating element, the door switch so power is shut off when the door is open.
I'm failing to come up with anything else that looks to be faulty. Removed the cycling thermostat at the rear in the exhaust vent, checked with an ohm meter and got solid tone/continuity. Placed it in a frying pan on the stove on low heat and it popped and broke connection, then reset itself once it cooled. Can't confirm the exact temp but felt warm to mildly uncomfortable so guessing it's around the 140-150F range they're supposed to operate at. Checked the high limit thermostat by the heating element the same way, it too cut off when it heated up but took a bit longer (likely higher thermal limit). Only difference was when resting room temp upon connecting the leads from the meter the values jumped around a bit before settling to a closed steady circuit. Didn't notice the other doing so.
With the fused link, the end of the fuse where the wire melted through the metal cap on the end of the fuse looked kind of melted like the metal began to drip. Checked the fuse with the ohm meter, solid tone so the fuse itself didn't pop. The one end of the wire melted totally through just where it meets the shoulder of the fused link assembly. The other side is discolored and appears it was starting to melt as well. After unwrapping the wire bundle/wad of the electrical tape done from the factory, when I touched the fusible link the housing was loose feeling. Like not even finger tight. Just spun right off and opened up. Wondering if it was a loose connection at that fuse that caused the overheat until the wire took the brunt of it or if the overheating began melting the fusible link causing the loose connection that made matters worse.
I could just grab another fusible link and attach it for $10-15 but a number of people say they've done similar only to run their dryer 2-3 times and have it fail again immediately. So trying to find out what caused the failure in the first place. It has to have been a main power source because when the line failed everything shut down (except for the melting wire). It wasn't a case of no heat and tumbler spinning, the whole works stopped. Visual inspection, no other wires look singed, melted, discolored, none of the insulated crimps, everything appears to be fine. Maybe just vibration in the dryer worked that fused link a little loose until the sloppy contacts created a short and melted through the wire? Door switch works (confirmed), thermostats seem to engage as intended. Nothing downstream that should've caused an overload situation. And to boot it's a new wall outlet that I replaced a couple months ago. The old one was in there since I moved in and had gotten worn out/loose. I confirmed it was in order and properly wired and grounded when I replaced it.
This may help better illustrate. This is the inline fuse that burnt, the pink 'cut' on the power cord side is where the wire melted through entirely. Also looks a bit green like a corroded wire inside. The outside of the fuse housing at the wire is all bubbled/distorted right around where the end of the fuse would've been. The wire is fused/melted inside the coupler on that end. The other end is melted some inside as well. Basically failed at either of the fuse without the fuse itself popping which sounds like an issue. Maybe the fuse itself is what was faulty. Failure to pop or melted and fused itself back together instead of breaking the connection.
