Awesome I think I’ve found something that could be the cause of the trouble!
Look here, it’s an odd angle but it is looking down on the drum and you can see there are 3 Teflon tabs. 1 is there as it should be (bottom one), the second done is broken, and the third one must have totally tore off and is nowhere in sight. This could be the factor of increased rolling Resistance that was bringing the drum to a screeching halt.
So now… how to find these pesky little teflon tabs, or create an alternate version of them myself and somehow glue/attach them down.
It’s apparently called a dryer drum glide. The original part is $75, but the site you linked to says you can buy OEM versions fro $25. I looked online using ‘drum glide’ as a google search term, and found this note from a 66-year old woman regarding her experiences changing out her dryer’s drum glide. It’s a different dryer, but I’m sure the principle is the same. http://www.partselect.com/PartDetail.aspx?Inventory=470317
I also found that there are a surprising number local places that sell oem dryer parts, and may even have a better price. Post pictures of anything you find out of place. What you posted so far is very likely, and I’m curious if it still happens when the dryer is on low or no heat. 5 minutes is long enough for it to get up to temperature.
Ok, I believe I’ve figured out what all happened and went wrong.
Cat-master - when I was in working on it, the drum felt like it was leaning forward and putting excess pressure on the teflon tabs. If it’s the same thing you dealt with so when I add a few more screws that should help hold the drum more “upright”. The screaching was most definately from the drum scraping across the teflon and as the speed picked up the resistance remained and the motor probably worked for a bit, overheated, and then shut down (it would take an hour before we could restart the dryer)
Cat-master - what kind of places would you suggest I start calling? If I could get this locally it’d save me a lot of time.
Coincidentally, I just replaced the dryer drum glides on my dryer last Saturday. Mine’s a different model and the pieces looked a little different, but if mine was any indication of how hard it is, it’s pretty easy. Considering all the stuff you’ve done in and outside of your house it shouldn’t be a problem for you. Ours was just squeaking a whole lot and once in a great while a piece of clothing would get stuck on the outer edge of the dryer, but it wouldn’t stop the dryer from operating.
I got the parts from partselect.com, asked for 2 day shipping and it showed up less than 24 hours later. They had a bunch of ‘customer stories’ or whatever they call them of people who already did the replacement and their advice. One good bit of advice I got for mine was to replace both the drum glides because if one is gone the other probably will be soon too, but yours may just be 1 piece? The other interesting bit with mine was that when I went to replace it, the plastic framing was worn down to the point that it made it a little difficult to get the replacement glide in there (nub to hold it in place was worn down.) If I’d known it was like that I may have ordered that piece ahead of time too, as it turned out to be pretty cheap, but my fix should last for quite a while and if I have to fix it in another year or two I’ll bite the bullet then.
ALSO! Take this opportunity to clean all of the dust and lint out of there, you’ll probably be able to dig into the lint trap a bit. Ours had quite a bit of buildup and it’s been operating much better since I did the fix. Also, be warned that you may inhale a metric ton of dust while doing so. With breathing issues someone should wear a mask or something (or something being make your wife do it!)
Most places that sell those parts aren’t going to have much of an online presence, so Yellow Pages, mostly. I would also investigate why there is so much wear on the guides. Assuming it’s not more than 5 years old, it could be that something broke in the back and the weight isn’t balancing. It’s supposed to “rest” on the guides.
On a slight tangent, I got my washer and dryer at hhgregg because they had a good sale (for once). The guy wanted to sell me an extended warranty. The extended warranty would have covered the washer and dryer for 3 years on top of the existing 5. The cost of the warranty was the same as a new washer. Piss off, hhgregg.
