Yesterday, I started drying a load of clothes and it sounded like there was something metal in the drum. I checked and there was nothing. I dried the clothes and the dryer worked fine. The clothing dried, but the sound continued. I thought that I was just missing the piece of metal. However, when I took the clothing out of the dryer, I never found any metal and when I reloaded the dryer, the sound continued. My husband took the front off the dryer and we started it. The sound seems to be coming from the drum area. We are wondering if it might be a belt? The dryer was purchased 18 months ago, but was not installed and put into use until JUly 2010. There is only myself and my husband in our household, so the dryer does not get a lot of use. The dryer is a Kenmore Elite HE3 7.0 cu.ft. Super Capacity Gas Dryer. We use propane. Model# 97872.
We do not have an extended warranty. We built a home and purchased all Kenmore Elite appliances and the cost of extended warranties for everything was crazy. We have been out of warranty since February 2011.
Thank you.

It sounds like you make have something stuck in one of the drum baffles. Check to see if something like a coin got stuck in one of the baffles. It won't hurt anything to have it in there, but you would have to take the dryer apart to remove it.

Thank you for the answer. We had a technician come out and it was a piece of heat tape that came loose on the inside wall and it was hitting the drum. Glad it was a simple fix, but sure sounded like something worse!