All gas dryers come from the factory setup for natural gas. If you’re gonna use propane with your dryer, you’ll need to convert it. The cost for this conversion is generally not included in the delivery fee because a company assumes significant liability if they do it wrong, like this guy did.

First thing you’ll need to do is buy the gas dryer conversion kit. They’re all the same so this one will work just fine. The kit comes with instructions and stickers. Follow the instructions to the letter and affix the stickers on the dryer as instructed. The purpose of this post is to give you a peek at what’s involved and to supplement the instructions, not replace them.

Before you start taking the dryer apart, you need to stop and do two things:

1. Unplug the dryer and

2. Shut off the gas to the dryer, shown below.

Now we’re ready to go inside ‘cuz that’s where all the action is, including the gas burner assembly. This page will help you with disassembly for most models. More dryer disassembly help is in the Laundry Appliance Repair Forum.

Next step is to get familiar with the basic anatomy of the gas burner in a dryer. Here’s an annotated picture a typical burner assembly. Uhh, I don’t have to tell you to click the pix shown herein for the larger view with the enlightening annotations, right, Grasshoppah?

Here’s a closeup of the ignitor itself, just so you can see what it looks like.


So, stepping back and looking at the big picture with the drum out, the guts of a typical gas dryer look like this.


Enough anatomy, let’s get on with the conversion! Turning first to the gas valve and regulator, there’s the brass plug with a little nylon pin sticking out of it (see the conversion kit picture above). That white nylon pin is called the blocking pin. Unscrew the plug on the valve, called a leak limiter, and replace it with the new one that has the blocking pin. This changes the gas regulator pressure setting for propane.

Next, change the orifice metering plug in the burner. This controls the amount of gas that enters the combustion area.

One point of technique here. Both the metering orifice and the blocking pin plug are made of brass and going into a steel valve body. Brass is softer than steel and will make a gas-tight seal without having to use gorilla force. When you screw these brass fittings in, don’t go nuclear, just snug ‘em down.

Here’s a pictorial diagram that summarizes the entire conversion process.

Next, turn the gas back on and leak check around the blocking pin plug. You can make a solution of dishwashing liquid and water and just dabble a little bit on there. If no bubbles, then you’re good to go. Wipe it off and let’s move on to the last step.

Last step is to put the dryer back together and run it to make sure that the burner fires up and doesn’t stink like rotten eggs. If all that checks good, go pop yourself a cold one and grab me one, too, while you’re at it, Budrow. Domo!

To learn more about your dryer, or to order parts, click here.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 13th, 2009 at 12:04 pm and is filed under Dryer Repair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.