How (not) to fix a dryer

Step 1: Get a text from your wife saying that the dryer is laughing at her and refuses to work.
Step 2: Take dryer apart.
Step 3: Stand in bewilderment.
Step 4: Pull dryer out into middle of laundry room.
Step 5: Scream like a banshee when dryer lid closes on your hand.
Step 6: Take the back off of the dryer and leave it in the living room for the dogs to lick clean.
Step 7: Take all the junk out of the back of the dryer and wonder how it got there.
Step 8: Convince wife that her hair clip may have been destroyed by the dryer but her hair clip was not the reason the dryer was destroyed.
Step 9: Make a ton of noise. It helps if you bang on metal.
Step 10: Occasionally yell out, "I'm okay!"
Step 11: Go running through the house screaming "BAND-AIDS! I NEED BAND-AIDS!"
Step 12: Convince your wife that the gash in your hand does not need stitches despite the fact that you feel woozy from blood loss.
Step 13: Continue to bang on the dryer until the fan in the back breaks into little pieces.
Step 14: Call dad.

Sadly, Fred the ghetto-tastic dryer died yesterday. I think it actually laughed at me when I put the load of towels in. DJ heroically came home and planned on replacing the dryer motor. (His dad found an extra one in his garage.) What we didn't plan on was the dead dryer putting up one heck of a fight! I attempted to take pictures. I eventually stopped because it just wasn't funny anymore. Here are the pictures I do have along with my commentary as the evening progressed!

Here we are, just getting started and oh so optimistic!! :) DJ's wondering why in the world I'm taking pictures!

DJ trying to get the drum disconnected from the motor. (I was propping the drum up so it wouldn't fall and crash on his head. I'm a good wife!)

There's good ole' Fred sitting in the garage! Well, at least that's the drum... That's the part of Fred I'm most familiar with.

We got it all taken apart and sat down to watch "Biggest Loser" and eat chocolate. I read on-line once that a regular sized candy bar contains 6 insect legs. (I don't want to think about what happened to the rest of the insect!!) I have no clue if that's true or not, but it's turned me off of candy bars forever! I figure, these aren't regular sized candy bars and are so small they must go zipping down the assembly line at super sonic speed. That's far too fast for any insect I've ever met!

Have you ever seen the inside of a dryer? The first time Fred broke I remember looking at it and thinking, "Wow! It's so simple!" (It was also very dirty. I've done a lot of cleaning to make it look like this...)

The noisest dryer motor ever. Our goal was to remove this tiny thing and put in the new one.

This is the first pile of junk DJ pulled out of the back of the dryer. Very dishearenting after spending the entire day cleaning house until it sparkled!

The dryer is now filling most of the space in the tiny laundry room. DJ's attempting to move everything else out - over the top of the dryer. Not an easy task when you have three square inches to move around in and a very heavy vacuum cleaner to hand to your weenie of a wife! WAY TO GO BABE!

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The plastic fan that had to come off in order for us to get the motor out. We eventually figured out how to remove the lint trap (that big gray thing on the right) and proceeded to shove sticks and screwdrivers in the fan blades while DJ banged like a fool on the other side. Sadly, that plastic fan is now in several pieces on the inside of the dryer. The center, however, remains in tact and refuses to release it's hold on the motor!

My very favorite kind of hair clip - eaten by the dryer. You can't really tell just how twisted and gnarled it is. I still think it had something to do with Fred's death. We may never know.

I'll spare you the real pictures of the cut. Just know that he sliced it on the edge of the dryer casing. We should have gone to the Emergency Room for stitches but didn't. DJ will have one heck of a scar to prove that he's the best husband in the world!

On the phone with his dad. Sore from cutting his hand and frustrated that the dryer refuses to be fixed. It was closing in on midnight at this point so he's pretty exhausted as well! (He's still an amazing husband for all the hard work and for refusing to give up on Fred!)

The inside of the dryer now. Lots of tools and a stubborn motor. At this point, all I could think was, "I JUST CLEANED!"

As DJ was carrying the back panel from the living room to the garage, we noticed some burns. Looks like something dripped down the back of the dryer, combined with the heat and the lint and burned up. Maybe this was the reason for Fred's death and not my hair clip! The world may never know...

And that's where we left it last night when we finally fell into bed. I have two loads of clothes that are sopping wet and will travel to a friend's house later today. (Tara to the rescue!) We don't know what our next step will be. This morning, we were too tired to care. Anyone want to give us a couple hundred dollars for a new dryer? :)