Frigidaire Dryer Repair in Toronto — Burning smell

• A burning-RUBBER smell on a Frigidaire/Affinity dryer is the idler pulley story, not the heater. The spring-loaded idler tensions the drive belt; when its bushing seizes the belt stops rolling over the wheel and saws across a locked pulley, glazing and sometimes melting the belt and grooving the pulley itself. The part is 131863007 on the older 27" vented Affinity/legacy machine and the interchangeable arm-and-pulley 134793500 / 134793511 on the newer Electrolux/Frigidaire front-control platform (confirm against the model parts diagram before van-stocking). Per the brand profile's belt-and-idler pattern we replace the drive belt at the same time — the 87-3/4" 4-rib drive belt 134503600 on the legacy machine, the 5-rib belt 134719300 (supersedes 137315300) on the front-control units — because a glazed belt on a stiff idler is exactly what produced the smell, and fitting a fresh belt over a frozen idler just cooks it again in weeks.
• A HOT-METAL / scorched-wiring smell with the drum still tumbling is a grounded heating element, not a dead one. The OEM 134792700 element (240V/5500W three-coil) can crack and short a coil to its metal housing; a partially-shorted element keeps making heat even after the cycle is satisfied, so the cabinet runs away hot and you smell wiring insulation and hot metal. The honest test is to meter the element to the housing, not just end-to-end — any continuity to ground condemns it. A grounded element is also what trips a safety limiter and can throw E63/E64 (open or grounded heater circuit) on this platform, so a burning-smell call and a no-heat code are frequently the same 134792700 fault.
• A grounded or overheating element drives the temperature past the safety limiters, and a blown one-shot fuse is often the burning smell's aftermath. The 137032600 inlet thermal fuse (non-resettable, supersedes 137060800) opens on an overheat event and the 3204267 high-limit thermostat (replaces 508516, ~260F cutout) trips when the heater housing runs too hot. On a burning-smell call these are never a standalone swap: a blown 137032600 or a tripped 3204267 always means something restricted airflow and let heat build — a lint-packed vent, crushed transition hose, or blocked exterior hood. We replace the limiter AND clear the duct, because a new fuse over a blocked vent opens again on the next load and the smell comes right back.
• An ELECTRICAL / ozone burn smell with the drum slow or hard to turn is the drive motor's own bearings. On this platform the motor is 5304529782 (supersedes 134693300 / 134693301 / 134693302 / 137115900); when its bearings dry out the shaft binds, the windings labour and overheat, and you smell hot copper and varnish before it finally trips its internal thermal overload. The honest diagnosis is to pull the belt and spin the drum and blower by hand: if they turn free but the motor still grinds, hums or runs hot on a start call, the motor (roughly $180–$210 OEM) is the part. We always rule out a bound roller or seized idler first, because a dragging drive train fakes a burning motor on this platform far more often than the motor itself fails.
• A HOT-FABRIC / scorched-cloth smell — sometimes with brown streaks on the laundry — is the upper drum felt seal and glide kit 5303937139 wearing through. The felt pad and three nylon glides cushion the front of the drum; once the felt is gone the drum drops, rubs the front bulkhead metal-to-metal, and can pinch and scorch garments caught at the drum lip. We replace the lower drum felt 5303937183 (and the lower basket seal 5303283286 on the streak cases) in the same visit because they wear at the same rate, so the kit is a one-trip fix rather than a callback when the lower felt fails weeks later. This is the burning-smell case that explains 'it scrapes, then I smell hot cloth' after the belt, idler and bearing all check out.
• The most-missed burning source on these machines is lint that has worked past the drum seals into the cabinet and settled on the heater housing, motor and belt — flammable fuel sitting on the hottest parts. Frigidaire's own service guidance is to have the dryer interior, lint-screen housing and exhaust duct cleaned roughly every 18 months; we treat the burning-smell call as exactly that overdue cleaning. Lint can also wrap the 137032600 thermal fuse inside the blower-wheel 131775600 area and overheat it, and a cracked or lint-packed blower wheel chokes airflow and feeds the overheat — so we clear the internal lint path and inspect the blower wheel as part of every burning-smell visit, not just swap a part.
• A faint hot-plastic smell that comes and goes with airflow points at the blower wheel and housing 131775600. The wheel spins on the motor shaft to push air through the drum; a cracked wheel, stripped splines, or debris (coins, hairpins) caught in the vanes makes it rub or stall, killing airflow so heat builds and the cabinet over-temps. We check the blower whenever the smell is airflow-side — worse with a full load, a damp finish, or a rattle that tracks the fan — rather than the drum-rotation drag of rollers or the rear bearing, because a stalled blower is what turns a normal heat call into an overheat-and-smell call.

Frigidaire burning smell in Toronto — the local specifics

• The recurring Toronto pattern on Frigidaire burning-smell calls is the overheat-after-blocked-vent chain: an exterior hood or long basement transition run packs with lint over a winter, the cabinet runs away hot, and the call comes in as 'burning smell' that is really a tripped 137032600 thermal fuse or 3204267 high-limit sitting on top of a glazed belt and a stiff idler. Close behind it is the worn felt/glide (5303937139) drum-rub on older Affinity machines in long-tenanted homes — the 'hot cloth and brown streaks' version of the same complaint.
• We carry to these calls the belt-and-idler set for both platforms (134503600/131863007 and 134719300/134793500), the thermal kit (137032600 fuse + 3204267 high-limit), the 5303937139 felt-and-glide kit with 5303937183 lower felt, and a vent-clearing kit — because the honest Frigidaire burning-smell fix in Toronto is almost always a part PLUS clearing the lint/vent path that overheated it.

For the full Frigidaire dryer module — every fault, part number and code — see Frigidaire dryer repair in Toronto, and for the same fault across all brands the dryer burning smell guide.