Three or Four- The Dreaded Dryer Dilemma

Why in the name of all that is good in this world is there more than one type of dryer electrical connection. So here's the non-electrical engineering method to get your dryer fixed up right.

Here's the history of me and my dryers.

• First dryer, shortly after being married (<1 week in our apartment), we got a used dryer from a friend. It had 3 prongs on the dryer and fortunately so did our apartment.
• About a year later, we got a newer dryer from a relative and it had 4 prongs...crud. So I searched and searched and eventually found a way to pull the 4 prong off and replace it with a 3 prong from the old dryer. I had to do some jimmy rigging, but I got it to work.
• Two moves later, we're in a new home with a 4 prong receptacle and a jimmy rigged 3 prong dryer that's supposed to have 4 prongs.

There is a lot of websites that explain how to take a turn a 3 prong dryer into a 4 prong receptacle. Also a lot of websites that show 4 prong dryer into 3 prong receptacle.

But I would like to show you what I did. 

Just a quick warning: UNPLUG THE DRYER BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING!!!

Materials:

1. Hands
2. Phillips Screwdriver
3. 1/4" Hex Socket (I recommend the 1/4" hex screwdriver with a Phillips insert)
4. New 4 prong electrical cord (I recommend the shortest you can get, they sell up to 10ft, but really you only need 12-18 inches)

Phase 1: Remove the old cord

Step 1: Remove the cord strain relief

What is a strain relief? It's this little puppy right here. Just two pretty simple screws and you can pull the two halves right out.

You need to kind of twist them up to get them out.

What is the function of a these strain reliefs? (A) They make sure that the connection where the wire meets the dryer isn't being pulled on all the time. (B) it ensures that wires don't rotate on you and touch.

Step 2: Disconnect all of the wires

The wires are connected by a 10-24 (1/4" long) screw in most dryers. That spec comes handy if you lose one of the screws. Just unscrew all 3 of them at once, it's no biggie.

You'll notice that if it was done properly the first time, there should be a green wire that goes to the control panel of the dryer that is connected to the center (white) wire. It's connected by just smashing it between the cable to the wall and the dryer connector. It's kind of hard from my picture below, but the placement of that green wire won't change when you put the 4 prong on.

Step 3: Remove Jimmy rigging and cable.

Now, when you changed your 4 prong to a 3 prong in the first place you had to make a connection from the chassis (back steel panel) to the center terminal (white). This Jimmy rigging is useless now, so go ahead and get rid of it.

Step 4:Take a peek under the hood

Now this is important because you don't want to cross your wires. Most 3 prong dryer hookups are not color coded (as can be seen in my pictures above). So you need to make sure that you get the colors straight when you put the 4 prong back into the dryer. Take a peek and take note of which color is where.

In case you can't tell from my picture, black on the left, white in middle, red on right.

Phase 2: Placing the 4 prong dryer in.

Step 5: Route all of the wires through the strain relief hole you removed the wires from previously. You're going to want the strain relief later on.

Step 6: Connect the black white and red to their respective terminal.

Ok, now you've got 3 of you 4 wires connected, now we've got to figure out what to do with the green wire coming out of the wall.

Step 7: Connect the external ground connector

On the back plate there should be some labeling showing where the external ground connector is located.

You'll notice that the external ground connection has a 1/4" hex on it. This is why I recommend the hex/screwdriver combo. Just pull the Phillips tip out and use the screwdriver to turn the screw and connect the green wire to the chassis of the dryer.

Step 8: Figure out what to do with the green panel wire

I simply forgot to put the green panel wire on the central white, so take that sucker and put him right in there with the white wire. This is how it usually comes from the store.

Step 9: Strain relief

A quick trick with the strain relief- there is one that has a through hole and another that has a threaded hole. You want to make sure that you thread through the through hole and then into the threaded. Quick visual shows that one side is smaller than the other.

As you can see, the bracket on the right has holes slightly smaller than the one to the left. The smaller holes are the threaded holes.

Pop those babies in the same way they came out and you should be done! Congrats in connecting your dryer up properly again.