How to Replace a Clothes Dryer Bearing Slide (With Video!)

Is your dryer making more noise than a rock concert? If it’s rattling, thumping, or scraping, it’s not just your patience that’s at risk—a small issue with the bearing slides could be damaging your dryer. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with an easy-to-follow how-to video just below, showing you how to silence the chaos and extend the life of your appliance in no time!

As dryers age, they may get a little noisy, rumbling, thumping and scraping as they tumble your laundry. While a noisy dryer isn’t the end of the world, you don’t need to live with the ruckus, either. In fact, it may be better to diagnose the problem and fix it. It’s not just noise you need to be worried about, that rattling and scraping could be damaging other parts of the appliance, and if the problem was as simple as fixing bearing slides, you might wind up kicking yourself for not looking earlier. Once you’ve verified that the noise coming from your laundry isn’t a jumble of loose change or an errant stick of lip balm, it’s time to peek inside the cabinet of the dryer to see what’s wrong. In all likelihood, it’s those dryer slides. They endure a lot of friction in their lifetime, and will eventually get worn down, breaking or falling out of place. Luckily, replacing these components is a relatively simple task that will quiet the rumbling and scraping while potentially prolonging the life of your appliance.

There may be a number of steps to complete, but this is a relatively simple repair! Read on for our complete walkthrough on replacing a clothes dryer bearing slide.

What Is A Dryer Bearing Slide?

These parts have a few different names: dryer slide, dryer glide, dryer bearing or drum slide, but they all do basically the same thing — they ensure that the dryer drum rotates smoothly, dampening the noise. These thin rectangular pieces may be made of felt or plastic and are found along the drum of the dryer. Dryers usually have four of these components, and even if it’s just one that is damaged or missing, it’s a good idea to replace the rest at the same time — kind of like tires. This will ensure that they all wear down evenly in the future.

Being that they are designed to endure a lot of friction, dryer bearing slides do wear down over time. It’s a little inconvenient to do a visual inspection on these, but you certainly can disassemble the dryer to check and see if they’re scraped up, broken, or missing. Otherwise, a noisy dryer is a good sign that the slides are damaged. In some extreme cases where the slides are sufficiently damaged, the dryer’s barrel may not turn at all.

Since there are a few different types of slide, it’s important to make sure that you purchase a compatible set for your appliance. Find out exactly what you need by searching your dryer’s model number within the replacement dryer bearing slide parts page on AppliancePartsPros.com.

Tools Needed to Replace a Dryer Bearing Slide

This is a relatively simple repair, and it doesn’t really require anything fancy to complete! Depending on your model of dryer, you may require different tools, but almost all of the items listed below will come in handy for replacing this part.

• A Torx 20 screwdriver.
• A flathead screwdriver or putty knife.
• A Phillips head screwdriver.
• A pair of pliers.
• A compatible set of dryer bearing slides.
• Work gloves to avoid pinching your fingers!

How to Replace a Clothes Dryer Bearing Slide

1. Disconnect the dryer from its power source. Whether you unplug the appliance from the wall or flip its breaker in your house’s circuit box, you’re going to want to start by ensuring the dryer is not receiving any power. It is vitally important that you not conduct any maintenance on an appliance if it is still plugged in.
2. Remove the dryer’s front control panel. To start, remove the mounting screws securing the control panel to the top of the dryer. There should be four of them, and they may be torx heads. Once that’s done, push the panel forward carefully, then pull up to free it from its tabs. You can leave all the wires attached and simply rest the assembly on the back of the dryer.
3. Remove the top metal panel. First, if your dryer model has a lint filter accessed from the top, you’ll want to start by removing that. The top panel, itself, will be held in place by two mounting screws which can be found inside the door of the dryer. Unscrew these and then carefully lift the top panel of the dryer. Once it’s up, you can pull it forward to remove it completely.
4. Continue disassembling the dryer by removing the front panel. There will be two screws on the inside of the dryer cabinet, accessible from the top, that you will need to remove. The front panel may fall forward once the second screw is removed, so be sure to prop it up with your arm or hip while removing this screw.
   
   Once the screws are removed, gently lift up on the drum to slide the front panel away from the dryer. Don’t yank it away immediately, though! The dryer door switch and the interior light will probably have wiring that you will need to disconnect first. Using the pliers, detach the wire harnesses from the front panel — you may need to check behind a plastic shield in the panel to find the harnesses — before lifting and then pulling this component away completely.
5. Inspect the dryer bearings. While it’s not unusual for just one bearing slide to go bad, it’s entirely possible that multiple bearing slides are damaged or worn down. Look for missing bearing slides and check each intact slide for damage or signs of deterioration. It’s not a bad idea to simply replace all of them in one go to ensure they are even and reduce the chance that you will need to repeat this repair later.
6. Remove slides. To remove any slides that may still be in place, slide a flathead screwdriver beneath them on the side without a hole to pop it free. Lifting the slide will free it from its retaining tab so that you can remove it. If your dryer uses felt slides, you will likely need to use a putty knife to remove them. Once they’ve been peeled off, make sure the surface is completely clear of glue before applying the new ones. You should be able to scrape the glue away with the putty knife or a razor blade.
   
   Installing the new slides is pretty simple! You just need to make sure that you start by lining up the holes on one each with their retaining tabs before sliding them completely into place.
7. Replace slides. Installing the new slides is pretty simple! You just need to make sure that you start by lining up the holes on one each with their retaining tabs before sliding them completely into place.
   
   The new slides will need to be secured in place by adhesive. Adhesive may be pre-applied to the back of the strip, or you may need to apply it, yourself. If this is the case, make sure you use a thin but evenly spread layer of high heat resistant adhesive. Even if your dryer uses plastic slides, on some models the slides may be secured by screws rather than by a tab. Don’t forget to reinstall any mounting hardware after slotting the new slides into place!
8. Replace the front panel. The bulk of the work is done, and now we’re just getting it all back together! Make sure you line the bottom of the panel up properly, it rests on two tabs on the dryer cabinet. Then, reattach the wire harnesses for the door switch and interior light.
   
   Next, you’ll want to lift up on the drum assembly slightly and tilt the main panel forward so it sits in the drum correctly. Once that’s set, thread the mounting screws back into place and tighten them to secure the front panel.
9. Put the top panel back into place. When reinstalling this part, you want to make sure that it aligns with the tabs at the top of the dryer cabinet. Press down to make sure it’s in place before reinserting and securing the two retaining screws you’d removed earlier. Don’t forget to put the lint filter back in place if you’d removed it!
10. Reinstall the front control panel. As with the other parts, you’re going to want to make sure you’re properly securing this piece into its alignment tabs, which should be located along the bottom of this component and at the base of the dryer lid. Once it’s set into place, you can thread in and tighten the four screws that secure the control panel.
11. Test the dryer. Congrats! The replacement is complete! You should return power to the appliance either by plugging it back in or flipping the breaker back on and then do a test run to make sure everything’s in working order.

Wrapping Up

Nothing beats the feeling of successfully tackling a problem you thought you’d just be stuck with, and by following our guide your laundry days should be a little less noisy! Though it’s a lot of disassembly, this replacement job isn’t too tough and you should be done in a matter of minutes. If you’re ever again in need of tips, tutorials, or replacement parts, keep AppliancePartsPros.com in mind. If you ever have any questions about how to replace appliance parts, we’re happy to lend a hand through our site LiveChat or give us a call!