I'm new to how a dryer works, so I just started taking it apart to see what exactly was causing it. The video examples on the APP website were all amazing. It gave me a good idea of what I was getting into and showed me the common repair issues. The dryer being 12 years old, I was on the fence about repairing or replacing. However, once I got a list of parts I might need and getting the confidence by watching the videos, I said "what have I got to lose."
The cause of the scraping and loud noise in the front was how the front glide rides solely on the upper felt seal. I would have thought that there would be more of a bearing type surface, but apparently, that was all that held up the front end of the dryer drum. Since I had it open and planned on keeping the dryer, I wanted to replace some of the other common issue items too. The upper felt seal didn't come with high temp adhesive, so I purchased that along with 2 front glides. This would have taken care of the issue at hand. The lower felt seal is not really a load-bearing surface (just seals in the heat) and that came with High Temp Adhesive. The rear drum bearing was probably still good but replaced it anyway. The kit was pretty inexpensive. And I figured to replace the belt just in case.
Having all the parts delivered in a matter of 2 days was awesome! Thank you for the quick shipping! Especially since I had the dryer disassembled in the middle of my living room (Condo with an in-unit dryer). It really just took a matter of 2-3 hours to do the whole job and referred to the videos in case I had a question. The bulk of the time was cleaning out the inside of the dryer and searching for a screw that disappeared somewhere (found it eventually! Yay!). After getting it back together and waiting for the adhesive to do it's thing, I took it for a spin and was wonderfully surprised at how quiet it was!!!! Thank you Appliance Parts Pros for making this DIY's day and all in all instead of spending 900+ on a new dryer (not including installation) I spend 200 on parts and am so proud of my work. You guys rock!