Dryer repair 101

This weekend I had big plans. I have been building up laundry for a while and I was going to buckle down and knock it all out. However, our drying wasn't up for it.  Our Frigidaire Affinity started making a light thumping noise that graduated to a full-on knocking as the morning went on.  It was operational, but I was afraid if we kept on using it, we would destroy it. I manually turned the dryer slowly and there was a definite point on each turn where it seemed to catch. I thought the belt might have been going pad, or something was loose in there and hitting against it.
I know nothing about large appliances. They have always intimidated me. In the past I wouldn't even think about fixing the dryer myself for fear of ruining it completely. I'm trying to get over that so I decided to start unscrewing things. I had to reference the Internet a couple times to make sure I was on the right track, but it wasn't long before I had everything disconnected and the font panel off. I took pictures along the way in case I needed to check how it all went back together.

The first thing I noticed is that the foam seal around the vent opening was completely destroyed. I thought the knocking was probably caused by this piece being so worn down allowing the drum to bump against something. The other thing I noticed was that the dryer was a total mess. There was lint everywhere. There were big clumps of it some places and everything was covered with a fine lint dust. A fire hazard for sure. There was a nickel in there, and a bunch of tiny beads that must have come off some fancy article of clothing not owned by me. As we cleaned it out my wife noticed a metal clasp from a shirt wedged near the top of the drum. I think that every time it rotated a small seem in the outside of the drum caught on that clasp and made the loud noise. We got it out and finished cleaning it. I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I headed to Home Depot to get a new piece of foam. This was seriously the most generic piece of foam. I thought for sure they would have it anywhere. Well, they didn't have it at Home Depot. They didn't have it at Lowe's. I called Sears and it had to be special ordered. I called around everywhere but every appliance parts store was closed. I looked up online and found the exact part I needed. I was a $15 piece of foam away from having a working dryer. I considered fashioning my own seal out of similar materials, but then I thought better of it.

I called the sears appliance parts department and ordered an oem foam circle alone with the proper adhesive to stick it back on there. We won't get it until Friday. I decided to go ahead and put everything back together without the new part, just to make sure I could do it.  It was fairly simple.  I was almost ready to call a repair man, but I am glad I resisted it. I'm looking forward to getting the new part in there and verifying everything works properly. If it does, this will be a win for me.