Dryer repair

For several weeks, the dryer has been thumping during a cycle, and it requires more than a normal cycle (50 mins) to get the clothes to dry. So Neil had a look and, at least to fix the thumping, it’ll be the the same repair that he did back in August of 2014 – except this time, he has Lara’s help.

First, a brief history of our dryer:

Date	Issue	Replacement Parts	Cost
2008	Original purchase. Guessing about the date; the information plate says “04/08”, which is likely the manufacturing date.	N/A	?
2014-08-06	Eating clothes! They get stuck between the drum and the slide. Countless baby clothes had snaps and buttons torn off before we finally repaired it.	137513300 Drum Glide 5303937183 Lower Front Felt Seal with Adhesive 134440200 Upper Front Felt Seal	$119.27
2015-09-12	Dryer has been squeaking loudly for several weeks, like a fire alarm.	5303281153 Rear Drum Bearing Kit	$34.58
2019-03-01	Won’t start. Has power, but when you press start it just makes a bad hum for a few seconds. Prior to this, had been requiring extra time to get clothes dry, for a couple months. Decided to replace the rear drum bearing again at the same time, as a preventive maintenance.	131560100 Drive Motor with Pulley 5303281153 Rear Drum Bearing Kit	$357.91
2021-01-23	Door handle ripped off!	N/A – See this post 🙂	$0
2021-03-16	Eating clothes and thumping again, same as in 2014. Can see a piece of metal stuck in the felt around the front of the drum. Decided to also do the rear drum bearing again, since the machine would be apart anyhow.	5303937183 Lower Front Felt Seal with Adhesive 134440200 Upper Front Felt Seal 5303281153 Rear Drum Bearing Kit	$98.67

A new washer and dryer costs around $2000. This repair parts cost $98.67 (including some preventive maintenance) so it was a no-brainer, especially if we can get several more years before something else breaks.

Over the years, we’ve bought parts from several sources:

• PartSelect – easy to find parts based on your symptoms; excellent free instructional videos
• Reliable Parts – they have a store nearby, so we can save on shipping
• Amazon – recently we find more and more parts are available on Amazon, and at better prices.

We used Amazon.ca this time; the parts shipped from a Canadian supplier called Amre Supply, from their Scarborough store. It’s cheaper to purchase through their Amazon storefront that it is directly fro their website.

Handy videos from PartSelect used in this repair:

• Dryer Repair- Replacing the Rear Drum Bearing Assembly (Frigidaire Part # 5303281153)
• Dryer Repair – Replacing the Lower Front Felt Seal with Adhesive (Frigidaire Part # 5303937183)

Note for next time: The felt comes in two parts; a stiffer, short, dark felt piece for the top of the drum (presumably because that edge is subject to more compression), and a longer white felt piece for the rest of the circumference. This time around they got installed the wrong way around (oops!). Next time it fails, we should be able to just purchase the Upper Front Felt Seal, and cut out and replace only that one section of old seal.

Shout out to Eastbound Brewing Co (@EastboundBeer); if you look closely you can see a Revealed Constellations Smash IPA which helped sustain Neil through this repair 🙂

Maybe next time, Lara can do this repair on her own!