Hard Bits of Something in Laundry Cloth From LG WM4370HKA and LG DLEX4370K

[paulw]

My wife said she'd been picking bits of something hard out of the laundry after it was washed and dried. She showed me a dishcloth that she said was had a hard part like what she'd been finding. It looked as if it had something smashed into it, on one side. She showed me some hard bits of something, which are shown here with a pen tip for size reference. Any idea what's going on here?

[Budget Appliance Repair]

You might want to open the pump clean out at the bottom front left and see if you don't find a bunch of that same stuff in there.

From the pictures is really looks like it is the aluminum tub support spider breaking down and sloughing off pieces - they get all pitted and start desinagrating, the arms will sometimes crack because it's so bad.

[paulw]

My wife now says she found small blobs of goopy gray stuff inside the washer, with the texture of a sticky booger. She guesses they harden to little stuck-in-cloth rock-like bit when dried. What makes sticky icky little (pea size or smaller) blobs?