Thanks. I posted on that forum and got a helpful reply. My problem seems to be the long vent duct which must be cleaned very often. Due to the location of the dryer, cannot reroute the duct and there is no space for a booster fan. Please disregard this posting.

I don’t think you need to get rid of your Maytag. there are some new portable battery backup solutions available that you probably should invest in anyway (fridge, medical equipment, radio radio/internet access for news) that would be more appropriate than a gas generator. I’m assuming your maytag runs off a regular 110 outlet? walmart has a bunch of these and they’re reasonably priced. plus plus, most red cross and fire stations will recharge for free. I’m looking at one for my pump house to keep our water and electric gate running - they are 220 running intermittently).

Auto-dry on your model works by temperature, controlled by the thermostats on the blower housing. The timer does not run while the heating source (electric element or gas burner) is active ... that is, when the exhaust air (drum temp) is less than the target operating temperature. When the target temp is reached, the element turns off and the timer turns on ... until the temp drops enough to trigger the heat source back on. And so it goes, cycling between heat-on/timer-off and heat-off/timer-on until the "time" runs out to Off. Per parts diagrams your machine has two operating thermostats (high and low temp selection, presumably), one of them may be bad. If you normally run on high, try low to see if it works then. If it doesn't work on either, then the heating element may be partially failed such that it isn't producing enough heat to reach the target temperatures. Or there's a problem with the timer related to internal contacts for the auto-dry function. Or the exhaust ducting is clogged and you've not yet found where.

Good News! The service guy came and found the door switch wire was loose. He reattached and tightened it and, Voila! a working dryer. Badish news: the service charge was $65 plus additional repair(???)charge balance came to $140! It still beats replacing the work-horse duo!