Showerthought: I've been fighting with dryer belt tension for years over nothing

So I was in this lady's basement in Akron, replacing the belt on her old Whirlpool dryer for the third time in a year. She kept saying it was squealing again. I put the new one on, same as always, and it was still making that awful noise. I was about to tell her the motor was shot when she pointed at the floor and said, 'Is that little wheel supposed to be rolling like that?' I looked down. The idler pulley wheel was just spinning free on its post, no resistance at all. The whole time, I'd been so focused on the belt path and tension arm spring, I never once checked if the actual pulley wheel bearing was seized up. It was. The belt was dragging, not gliding. I felt like a total fool. I swapped the pulley for a new one, cost like 12 bucks, and the noise was gone. How many times have I missed that simple check? Anyone else ever get so stuck on the 'usual' fix that you miss the obvious part right in front of you?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_zara11d ago

Honestly, I gotta push back on that. If you're doing the same repair over and over, the first thing you check is the part you just replaced, not some other random piece. The belt was the part failing, so focusing on the belt tension makes perfect sense. That pulley wheel should last the life of the machine, so it's not an obvious suspect at all. Missing it doesn't make you a fool, it just means you trusted the original engineering.

mason28311d ago

But what if the part you keep replacing is the symptom? In my experience, a failing pulley can chew through belts like crazy. You have to look at what's killing the new part, not just the part itself.