The main control knob on my wife's Maytag dryer all of a sudden doesn't click between settings. Further investigation shows that the little ball and spring have come out and this normally serves as an indent to hold the knob on a given setting. We have found the ball but not the spring as it may still be inside the dryer cabinet. My dilemma is this. In order to get to the back of the switch, the plastic cowling has to come off. It looks like this cowling might just pop off, but I didn't want to break it by forcing. Is there a correct way to remove this cowling? We are talking about the center knob on a Maytag MED9600SQ0. Any help would be appreciated.

Hello,
If I am not mistaken, when you remove the plastic all of it will fall apart if it's the part holding in the various parts of the switches. I would advise getting a new timer to keep it from burning the house down. You also should take the time to clean it out since it's obviously old enough to need cleaning. You need to totally tear it down and scrape out and wash all of the parts except the motor (washing the parts out is an extremely important step not to take lightly), which you vacuum out. Halfway doing it will not work. This includes the exhaust vent, all the way, even the outlet on the side of the house, if you have one. You can go to YouTube to see videos on how to take it apart, but do a very good job or it will fail. I would get a new belt and change it while you have it apart and get some white lithium grease and grease any bearings you find. You need to pull the support rollers apart to grease the pins with white lithium grease. You need to clean out a drier every year, at least, according to the manual. All sensors work together by comparing temperature, so all need to be cleaned. You just unplug the wires from the sensors and remove ductwork that they are attached on (Label wires!) and clean the entire thing with soap and water. Make sure you go all through the dryer and get all parts like the blower fan and housing, vacuum out motor well and clean exhaust. Mark all wires you unplug so you know where they go. This is an easier job than you would think. Once it's all clean then install the new timer and it will run for a long time until you clean it again. Manuals: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8010163/Whirlpool%20Dryers.zip
Good Luck.