Although it’s labelled Kenmore, Frigidaire manufactures this machine. I’ve been seeing this problem on several service calls lately. Two common troublemakers can cause this problem, one minor and the other a muthah. Fortunately, the minor one is also the more common one. To check both, you’ll need to remove the back panel of the washer.

First thing to check is the drive pulley. Work that sucker back and forth and make sure it’s on the shaft good n’ tight. If there’s any play at all, it’ll make a gawd-awful racket when the washer goes into spin. If you do find that it’s loose, then most likely the flat of the shaft has worn the flat on the aluminum pulley. Don’t screw around with trying to shim the pulley because that’s just a bandaid and you’ll just be living on borrowed time. Go ahead and git you a new pulley.

The other problem is more severe and you better to pray to the appliance gods that you don’t have it. This unhappy situation is caused by a leaking tub seal that rusted the tub bearing. You’ll know right away if this is your problem by the tell-tale rust streaks on the back of the tub. The genius engineers at Frigidaire made the tub bearing an integral part of the tub so to change the bearing, you have to replace the whole frikkin’ tub. It’s about a three hour job that requires almost $400 in parts. I nominate that Frigidaire engineer for the Dumbass of the Year award. Can I hear an amen?