86868 (P1116904W L) Amana Refrigerator - Instructions

First I removed the old handle by removing the 3 screws holding it in place. There are 2 on the top and 1 at the side of the door. When I began to put the new handle on it became apparent that the metal frame inside the handle was not aligned perfectly with the old screw holes. The plastic is not even with the door horizontally on the top, but it fits otherwise. Be careful not to over tighten the screws when installing. Pretty easy overall.

I removed the back cover in the freezer section by removing six screws. The entire coil, the thermostat and the lines were all iced over. I used a hairdryer to defrost everything. I removed the thermostat by uncoupling the connectors and unclipping it from the coil tubing. I found the thermostat was bulging and deformed. I jumped out the thermostat using an insulated clip lead. I taped it so it would not short to anything. I plugged the unit in, turned the unit to "1" and advanced the defrost timer to defrost. I could hear the water hissing on the coil. I ordered the thermostat. It arrived in 3 days. The new one had a different terminal. I cut off the matching one from the old part and used a scotch-lok to make the connection to the new part. I slapped it in, dressed the wires and replaced the cover. I noticed that when I advanced the timer after replacing the thermostat, it did not immediately come on. The thermostat has an operating temperature window. I checked it several days later and found no frost. Everything works great.

It was very simple. Pulled the little cover off of the bottom screw and removed it along with the 2 top screws. Then just do the reverse to install the new handle.

I removed the old grille toe plate and snapped the new one in it's place.

After popping off the lower cover all I needed was a screwdriver to remove both the upper 2 screws and the lower screw. The new handle was attached in seconds and it matches great.

Removed 2 screws from top and removed bottom cap cover to access the bottom two screws for its removal. Replaced handle by using the same screws and put back the small plastic cap cover and DONE.

First of all let me say I can't believe I fixed it! And I can thank this website for it, they also had my part at my front door in less than 24 hours. I am so amazed! I am a stay at home Mom, and because my husband is always off with the military I knew the job was up to me to fix. And because times are tough we certainly couldn't afford a repairman. After reading many stories here about the same problem I had, I diagnosed what was wrong with my refrigerator. The defrost thermostat was faulty. First thing to do was turn off the refrig and then unplug it. I then emptied the bottom freezer, used a screwdriver to remove back panel wall. Lo and behold the coils were covered with ice. I defrosted the freezer using a blow dryer, also had to empty the drip pan in the back. when it got full of water. ANd because there is no way to remove the drip pan, I actually got a small air hose from my son's old fish tank(clean one) and then siphoned the water into a pot, took all of 10 minutes! I then used needle nose pliers to remove the bad defrost thermostat from the refrig's wiring.The defrost thermostat which had a bulge in it so knew I was on the right path. I looked at the new defrost thermostat and they had different ends on it then the one I just removed, and I remember reading what another member did, and that was to cut off the connecting caps, strip the wires , use electrical tape to join them and use a crimping tool to place the old caps on to the new defrost thermostat .I then inserted the thermostat to the freezer's wiring. Hope that makes sense to everyone. WEll, everything is running great! Thank-You Part Select, you saved me lots of money!

I removed 7 screws hold the heavy cardboard cover on the rear of the fridge. The dificult part was taking the screws that hold the 3 fan motor braces on the fan out. After that it was a matter of making the wire conections and putting it back in. I did not have enough room to laydown to do the work, If i had it would have been a lot easier to see the screws that had to be removed. All in all an easy job, and the part was a perfect fit.

I have a side by side Amana fridge about 12 years old. One day I noticed everything was not cold anymore. I checked the temp with my infrared thermometer and it was about 70 in the top of the fridge, 40-50 in the bottom, and freezer was the same! So after pulling out the two baskets in the bottom of the freezer and the side rails that hold the baskets, I used a 1/4 nut driver to remove the back lower panel. After looking at the electrical schematic on the back of the fridge, I jumpered around the defrost thermostat, a little cylinder with two wires coming out of it. Bingo, the fan turned on. Well after a few days of running fine with it jumpered my new one arrived. I never really tested my old one with a meter so I did that and it tested fine, so I plugged the old one back in and it worked fine for a few days. Then one day I noticed that fan wasn't running again so I just put the new one in. I had to cut one of the connectors off as it was female instead of male and crimp cap it together, but besides that it went fine. So after connecting it I noticed the fan motor was buzzing but not spinning. I wiggled wires around and determined the connector going into the fan motor had to be a certain way to make the connection. I unplugged it, it wasn't corroded or anything but if pulled down on, it would not make connection. So pulling up on the connector proved that it would make good connection, so a ziptie keeping the wires tight in the up direction proved to be the solution. I'm pretty sure my old defrost thermostat was not the problem. So that's my story. Hope it helped.

Unplug fridge, unpluged fan motor from plug socket, removed bracket screws, removed fan retainer clip from shaft. removed screws holding fan to bracket

Once I removed the contents of the freezer I found ice on the inside back panel Removing the panel I found ice on the cooling coils and the defrost thermostat was bulged out where the wires were attached.I removed the panel with the nutdriver as shown in the video. I removed the ice maker connection and removed the panel from the freezer section. I then had to manually defrost the area with a heat gun. The ice had actually covered the Defrost Thermostat - which was bulging where the wires were attached.. The defrosting took the majority of the repair time - the actual Defrost Thermostat replacement only took about 20 minutes once I could get to it. I spliced the wire with a crimping tool as discussed in the video. Once all was defrosted I reversed the operation.Overall, a very simple part change out. The video was extremely helpful - if nothing else to mentally prepare me for the task.

remove ice maker vent and back piece. Unclip defrost thermostat and unplug. Plug new thermostat in and clip to element, reattach back piece, vent and ice maker. Is a tight fit getting icemaker out, there are 3 screws 2 on top and one on bottom.

I used a phillips screw driver to remove the screws. The toughest part was removing the lower screw cover so that it could be reused. Piece of cake!

Replacement was extraordinarily easy. It took about 5 minutes, including the time to find my tools and put them away after I was done. As others have warned, only the handle itself was shipped. The trickiest part was being careful not to break the little plastic cover at the bottom of the handle when I pried it off. Apparently a screwdriver under any edge would have worked okay. There were three Phillips-head screws (replacements were not included in the package!) - and that was it.

Removed old handle with a total of three screws, two on top and one on bottom of handle. Replaced with new handle and put existing screws back in place. Very easy!