[very noisy dryer]

Hello there! My performa maytag dryer c.2 yrs old makes an intermittent "ratching" type noise- I disassembled the dryer thinking it was bad gears starting to slip - has no gears to slip!-also has screw in type blower wheel so no wallowing out of blower wheel hole-all looks ok. The noise is a quick gear slipping/ratching type noise that does seem to come from motor area and seems to last for 5-15 seconds at a time-in testing, it seemed like possibly a slight correlation to heater coming on going off (ps my laymen hypothesises are usually wrong-so I'm probably wrong here too)-so was wondering, could this sound be a loud heater relay going bad and machine gun (fast)clicking? Is there such a relay on the motor housing? The only other thing I could think of is the idler pulley going bad causing belt to slip? Many thanks in advance from obviously confused and needing help Mike