Our Whirlpool WED75HEFW0 dryer is about 5 years old. It's been working great, but had recently developed a random SCREEEEECH that would give us a mini heart attack when it happened. Lately, it was becoming less of a random here-and-there and more "all the time."
I did some research and this kit seemed to be the most likely solution to the problem.
I watched the relevant repair video a few times and was pleased to see that it was the same man who did the video on fixing our KitchenAid stand mixer because he did a good, calm presentation of the process for that repair and now for the dryer one.
I clicked 2+ hours for the time to complete, but the thing with that is I'm on the other side of 70 so slow and stop are the only speeds that I have any more. I'm sure that someone younger with even a whisper of mechanical ability could have it done much quicker.
In MY case, I'm more or less sure that the culprit was the white idler wheel. When I spun it by hand before removal it was the only wheel of them all that squeaked. It also had rust inside the metal shaft and what was probably metal dust on the outside of the wheel. I could be wrong about that idler being the cause of the noise, but it's academic because I would not have wanted to do anything less than to replace ALL of those parts with new ones anyway.
The work to replace the parts was not challenging. Keeping track of what went where will save the day. Takes photos before you remove something and use screw organization as I noted to make life easier when you reassemble.
A couple notes for posterity:
- Keep track of where your screws came from. I use a mat from computer repairs that lets you write on it with an erasable marker. You could even use just a sheet of paper to group the screws into something like "cover," "front panel," etc. You'll end up with quite a few screws of a couple different sizes, so it really helps to know what came from where.
- Installing the belt seemed like a daunting task when you see the small amount of space to work in. STUDY the situation first, know how the belt is threaded around the motor and idler wheel. Then, sit with your legs on either side of the dryer cabinet. Your RIGHT hand will lift up the idler arm so that you can get the belt around that white wheel. Your LEFT had will loop the belt around the motor wheel, doubled together under the idler wheel and then opened up to go up and around the drum.
I can only imagine how much we saved by doing this myself and we didn't have to wait for a service person to hopefully actually show up to do the work.