Upper Drum Glide

First and foremost, I read the repair reviews here at parts source and found that a) Other people had the same symptoms, b)following their repair tips made it super easy.
What I would add to previous reviews is to pull the front off or the little acces grill in back and check to see what kind of belt you have. According to the model #, It showed the wide flat belt when in fact I had the smaller ribbed belt. Glad I checked before ordering.
A few things that will make your life easier is once you have the old upper guide/seal removed, put down the glue then use several med sized plastic spring clamps to hold the seal in place while the glue sets up, (@ 20-30 min). Their cheap and you should have some around anyway. When replacing the seals I would go ahead and replace the belt too. It's cheap and if your machine is 5+ yrs old probably is worn. Total cost of repair was about $60 (inc shipping). Took about 1 hr 20 min total time. Most of that time was scrapping the old seal material/ glue off the dryer front. Actual disassembly and repair maybe 1/2 hour. Other little tip is the clips for the lid of dryer is to use a flat screwdriver and gently push straight in until it's compressed enough to release the lid, it will pop up when pushed in far enough. That one took me a while to figure out.
Thanks to Part Select for such a helpful site. My dryer is like new again.

We followed the instructions for the drum glide replacement and changed the belt and drum support bearing piece, cleaned it out too. Works like a charm. Thanks for saving us a bundle.

I was getting brown spots on my clothing since I bought this used dryer. Went to partselect.com Fine with me, but not my wife and daughter! Anyway, after ruling out rust, I ended up here and found Randy's story - without it, I'd be lost! Basically, the felt seal crushes over time, and clothing gets caught in the gap stuck against this nasty old brown felt and leaves a mark.

Replacing the belt was a very good idea, though as mentioned, the drum support bearing is just a "nice to do" - not necessary, but it gives you the excuse to re-grease it (I used a thick Molly impregnated grease from my motorcycle).

The only other advice I can give is that I used a chisel to scrape off the old felt - it came off in very little time, and I didn't end up needing to really do much cleaning of the drum afterwards. Just use a sharp one you're not afraid to dull - it'll be metal-on-metal contact.

Using the spring-loaded clamps that you can get from the hardware store was also a huge help - it just needs to keep the upper glide stuck to the drum for the 30 minutes for the glue to cure - I used 6, but 3 would work. The bottom seal doesn't need them as the felt will tend to stick to the drum when the glue is applied.

You might not NEED to replace the lower seal, but I'd suggest it. It's cheap enough, and this job is "not fun" enough that it only adds a few minutes total - good insurance that you do a complete job.

You also might want to get some aluminum foil tape and re-tape your blower extension tube - mine was ripped off from moving from house to house over the years.

Unpluged dryer. Removed the top of dryer by pushing in a retaining clip on both sides of the front lip with a screw driver. Remove the two screws on both sides of front panel. These screws are square head or phillips #2. Unplugged the wiring harness to front panel (make sure power has been disconnected). Support drum and lean front panel away from dryer body. Front panel will pull off of tabs at bottom. The old drum glide is fiberous and hard to remove. I removed most of it with the pliers, but had to carefully scrape the balance of the glide off with the wood chisel. The adhesive that comes with the repair part has an acetone base, so I used acetone (or you could use nail polish remover) to remove the old adhesive. Once the acetone has dried, I applied an 1/8" snaking bead of adhesive to the front panel. There is more adhesive in the tube than you need so do not use too much. Make sure that you get adhesive as close to the base of the lower seal as you can. Follow directions on adhesive tube and then attach the glide. I let it set up for about 30 seconds. Place the front panel back on the tabs of the dryer. Carefully lift the drum an fit it on the front panel and insert the two screws holding the panel to the base. Reconnect the wiring harness and make sure it is not in contact with the drum. Check to make sure that all of the electrical connectors on the timer are still in place. Reassemble the dryer. Reconnect power.

Took the face off, and replaced the worn down drum glide and felt. Works just fine now.

I felt ,if I was going to replace the top drum glide and lower basket seal, I might as well replace the belt ,bearing assembly and the idle pulley assembly and avoid having to replace these sooner than later. All of the parts showed alot of wear and the belt like all drive belts, should be changed every 5-6 years.
DISCONNECT ELECTRICITY and GAS LINES
1.popped top by pushing and prying at front /top clips about 2-3in. in from side edges. lifted it off
2. removed the front panel by removing the 2 top front screws from the inside, then the two lower screws from the front after removing the small white plastic hole covers. disconnected the multiplug electric connector top right. set panel aside.
3.remove small back panel.and loosened belt.(observe belt path and idle pulley assy.
4. lifted drum and slid it out the front.
5. using socket, removed rear plastic bearing housing and replaced the same. be careful of observing the small ball bearing and the small piece on outside back panel. replace the same. you wil probably need a second set of hands to hold the piece on the outside when screwing in the screws from the inside.
6. unscew the "bearing" from the rear of the drum and replace with new one.(the screws are self-tapping and go in HARD!!)
7. apply lubricant liberally to plastic bearing holder
8. place new belt around drum(rubber side against drum cloth side out.
9. idle pulley assy. is removed by removing spring and just sliding assy out of holder. replace with new
10. replace drum and belt
11. take front panel and remove top drum glide and lower basket seal.( i marked where the two seal/glide come together with a marker )
12. scrape and remove as much felt and possible. I then used "goo gone" to remove all the glue. clean well and using the provided high temp adhesive reattached glide and seal.
13. reassemble and enjoy your NEW? dryer

I followed others suggestions with numbered steps and listened to others suggestions about replacing other parts while in the dryer. I took the dryer apart and cleaned it out well. I used acetone to remove the glue from the felt and Drum Glide at the top of the Drum. It worked much better than Goo Gone. By doing the clean up and evaluation one day, I ordered all the parts that I saw were worn or difficult to get to. I replaced the Heating Element only because the old one was very brittle and to get to it again would be difficult. Also, I followed other's advice to photograph the parts before removing. It was easy to remember how things went if I had a photo to refer to.

When the parts arrived it only took about 30 minutes to install them all because the glue removal, lint removal, and parts removal had been done another day. I should add that I am a 66 year old woman and found the job quite simple. Excellent web site. Thanks to others for the step-by-step instructions. Oh, to hold the Drum Glide and felt in place while the glue cured, clothes pins work great. I let the glue cure overnight to make sure that it was really secure.

I look up on the internet on how to disassemble dryer to get to the parts needed. Took off top, found screws to take off front. Removed existing drum riding seal and lower seal. Used laquer thinner to remove excess glue. Cleaned throughly with soap and water. Reapplied new seals.

At the same time removed drum and parts in the back of the dryer for ball bearing. great, expeditious help from your store. Thank you

Once the seals have worn out, clothes started to get hung up. This would essentially ruin the clothes that became stuck. To replace is pretty straight forward and the hardest part is removing the glue and residue from the previous seals.
In Summary:
1. Unplug the dryer
2. Use the putty knife to open the top of the dryer, there are two spring clips to depress by placing the putty knife in the gap between the top of the dryer and the front panel. About four inches from either side...
3. Remove the two screws that go from the side panels into the front, one screw on either side of the drum about 8 inches from the top, phillips head screws..
4. The face will come off and the drum will drop a bit, no big deal.
5. Disconnect the electrical connection in the top of the dryer. There is a harness connector at the top right of the dryer and one tie wrap holding it loosely .
6. Remove the old seals... Not the general location of the top seal and mark the ends with a sharpy on the lip of the dryer face... This way you know where to reinstall the new seal. You have to glue it back on and won't get too many chances to glue it down.

7. Let the work begin. Remove the old glue and residual seal material from the lip. I used a sander in some places, a razor blade in a holder in some, and a wire brush in a drill in others. The wire brush did the best job but wouldn't reach everywhere.

8. After you've cleaned the lip off. Begin by putting some glue, liberally, around the location for the top seal with the plastic pieces on it. I used some spring clamps to hold it in place after gluing. You'll be turning the face over to put the bottom seal on and need it to be in place firmly.

9. Put some more glue on the lip and being placing the lower seal. Use a spring clamp every 12-18 inches to hold the seal and make good contact. I pulled my seal tight as I put it in place. Not too tight to compress but tight enough that I had 4 inches to cut off after I made it all the way around.

10. Leave the clamps on the seal for 10 - 15 minutes. Longer if you can. Once you replace the front of the dryer, all those fumes are in the dryer and any clothes that you dry right away will smell like that if you don't let the glue cure. I didn't have a lot of time so I waited 15 minutes and replaced the dryer front, then I ran the dryer on low heat for one complete cycle to help the glue setup.

11. Replacing the front is just reverse operation of removal. Be sure to pay attention to the tabs at the bottom of the front dryer panel. They are attached to the lower dryer panel and you need to lower the front panel over them so they'll hold it tightly.

12. You'll need to slightly lift the dryer drum to get it to line up with the new seals on the front panel. It may be a slightly tighter fit with the new seals, you'll know when you have it in correctly. Press the front panel back inward and replace the two screws you removed earlier. Reconnect the wiring harness and replace the tie wrap you cut. Put it back to similar tightness that it was when you cut it out earlier.

13. Lower the top panel and snap it back down into the front panel.

14. Plug it back in and test it.

There are steps I've overlooked I'm sure... Such as thoroughly cleaning the lint trap in the front panel while you have it removed... and vacuuming out the dryer itself with the front off. Not to mention examining the other wear items on the dryer such as the belt and roller assembly. Or the rear bearing and carrier. Did I mention Cleaning out the dryer? All that lint in the duct work hinders your dryers ability to operate effectively.

Best of luck.

After reading other posts on this page I learned that these symptoms are very common for older dryers when the felt bearings ("seals") are worn out. I replaced the top and bottom felt strips (the top one has plastic wear pads which had completely worn away on my machine). I also took the time to replace the rear plastic bearing and the belt (pretty cheap parts). In addition, after opening up the dryer I found that one of the wire pigtails connectors was black and melted from arcing (bad connection). I replaced the bad connectors with crip-on connectors from Radioshack ($2). Incidentally, I bought lifetime supply of high temp wheel bearing grease: one tub for $7... and used about a teaspoon, but hey, that's still cheap. The hardest part was cleaning off the old felt adhesive, I used nail polish remover to soften the old glue and scrapped of 80% with a screw driver... good enough! I held the new felt on with duct tape until the glue dried.

I suggest watching the installation video for the rear bearing replacement I found on this website. It showed me where the screws are and the trick for lifting up the back of the tub using the belt to disengage the rear bearing. It was a snap.