GWE23LBTBFSS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

After replacing the defrost heater, main board and thermistor I still had the same problem. Called a repair guy and he (with the help of GE on the phone) diagnosed that the temperature sensor was bad. So I ordered from partselect and installed it and it fixed the problem. Been good for a couple months (knocking on wood). To install I had to cut the 2 wires to the old sensor, crimp the 2 new wires on and snap the new sensor to the clip on the evaporator. Very easy. Make sure you seal the ends of the wire crimps so moisture doesn't get in and corrode the connection.

I went to a GE repair center to explain my problem, the service center reccomended that I have a techinician come out o look at it. $75.00 for the visit and what ever labor and materials wuld cost.

I went on line to see if there were others having this same problem and found that there were many with the same problem.

After reading some of the ways that people found out what was wrong ...it became a matter of three components, the timer, heater or thermostat.

I tried the most common component and the less expensive one first , the thermostat switch I installed it very easily snipping two wires and attaching the news using wire nuts I used the diagram on this website to pinpoint the component and there has not been a problem since.

My repair experience was a little more complicated than previous posts, but nothing major. And most importantly replacing the Fresh Food Air Inlet Cover did fix my problem. Here are the steps I followed:
1. You will need to remove a minimum of the top two shelves to get access to the Air Inlet Cover. It runs along the back of the fridge and connects to a hole to the freezer side. It has a little fan inside that sucks the cold air from the freezer and diverts to the top and bottom of the fridge.
2. As mentioned in other posts, there are four screws holding the Inlet Cover in place, 2 lower and 2 upper. To get access to the lower two screws,you simply pop off the lower duct assembly (squeeze the sides). Be careful when removing and installing these screws. If you drop one into the lower duct, you will add a few more steps to the installation to remove more shelves and take out the lower duct to get to where the screw fell. Obviously this happened to me. Not difficult to do, just adds more time.
3. To access the upper two screws I had to remove the top light cover (one screw) and then slide out the top duct/diffuser assy (my name, not GE's).
4. Finally to get clearance to pull out the Inlet Cover, I had to remove the water filter and cover. When you pull away the Inlet Cover, you will see the electrical connection that is simple to disconnect.
5. After I removed my Inlet Cover, it was obvious that it was broken because it rattled and I could peek inside to see that the plastic air diverter/flapper thingy was broken.
6. One final surprise was that the replacement Air Inlet Cover did not exactly match the one I removed. The replacement only had one upper air outlet, while my old one had three upper outlets, left, right and center. I noticed there was a plastic cover over one of the side outlets on the replacement, so I just popped that off and hoped for the best.
7. The replacement Air Inlet Cover Kit came with sticky back insulation that you attach to where the Inlet Cover meet the freezer access hole to make sure snug fit to limit extra cold air leaking into the fridge side.
8. Installation of the replacement Air Inlet Cover was fairly easy, just follow the above steps in reverse and make sure you don't drop any screws.
It's been a couple of weeks since I performed this installation and my fridge has been maintaining temperature perfectly. No more frozen milk or lettuce. The wife is very happy.

I removed the old temperature sensor by cutting the wires. I attached the wires of the new sensor with wire nuts and mounted it in the same bracket.

I had to remove all of the shelves.....part of the ice maker.....the rear cover over the freezer coils.....There were two wires that came from the back of the freezer that were also incorporated with the fan motor plug from the factory....This caused me to cut all of the wires from the new motor and soider them to the existing plug and shrink wrap the connections. If GE would have supplied two new ends I could have cut only those wires added the ends and inserted them into the new motor plug thus eliminating an extra hour and a soildering iron,,,,In my case not a big deal however not a project for those who have trouble with repairs using these type of tools.

This story starts with a GE side-by-side refrigerator that has always had wide temperature swings and a temperamental water dispenser. The ice maker was not making ice, and the built in digital thermometer showed it was running warm. I suspected that the heat exchanger was full of dust and so looked there. What I found was that the condenser tank was hot to the touch and the fan wasn’t running. As an experiment, I aimed a fan at the it for a while I saw that the freezer temperature dropped back to normal.
.The fan is marked as 11.2 DC so I checked for voltage at the fan and found some. With three wires and no wiring diagram I wasn’t sure this answered all the questions, but hooking the fan to a 12 volt power supply didn’t get it to spin.
I priced parts at a couple websites before using partselect.com . They also have a good diagram to look at (Sears diagrams are really poor). I ordered the part with 2-day shipping; it arrived on time, was correct and fixed the problem.

Removed rear and front grills,brushed and vacuumed area- probably caused the fan motor to fail- unplugged fan, removed fan,motor,and shroud in 1 piece, carefully slipped fan off motor shaft, unscrewed shroud and motor. assembled in reverse order. Frige is in tight area, .I'll now roll it out and clean often

First ,I placed all the frozen food from the freezer into the lower fridge compartment. Removed the main shelf. Removed the ice cube tray shelf. Removed the center plastic covers using a nut driver. Removed the complete inside back wall of the freezer to get access to the fan. Simply removed about 5 screws, and cut 3 tie straps that held the wiring in place. Unplugged the fan connector and removed fan with its brackets and placed them on the kitchen table. Then used the nut driver to remove 2 screws which hald the fan to its bracket. Simply pulled off the fan blades and pressed them onto the new motor. Mounted new motor onto the bracket. Reinstalled the fan assembly back into freezer. Reconnected the wiring and the fan began to run... BE CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH THE FAN WITH YOUR FINGERS!
Finally replaced all the covers, panels, and shelf etc. and everything is once again nice and cold.

we just pried out the old switch and pulled it out the rest of the way with a pair of needle nose pliers. Pulled off the wires on the broken switch and reattached to the new one and just slid/clicked it back into the hole.

1) Unplugged fridge and removed cover over light in freezer.
2)Removed screws holding cover over motor.
3) Removed screws on bracket holding motor in place.
4) Un plugged motor and used razor blade to cut grommet holding wires in place.
5) Plugged in new motor and routed wires through grommet. Then used zip ties to hold grommet together.
5) Re-attached motor bracket and installed new fan.
6) Reinstalled cover over motor.

Replaced gasket. No tools requires. Just pull the old one out and press new one in channel with hands. TIP: heat the new one slightly with a hair dryer or a heat gun on low. Makes it more flexible

I should state first that I am a DIYer and have no experience fixing appliances. The fan noise seems to be a common problem. It has something to do with the bearings. Mine was actually hitting the housing in front on the fan as well. Getting into the installation, I knew I had to take the back panel and fan housing off. But I found out that everything needs to come off. This is the ice maker, the housing underneath the ice maker as well as the fan housing and back panel. This isn't difficult but good to know before hand. A quick note, the light bulb housings come out by pulling them forward. It's a good idea to label the screws as you take them out as there are quite a few that need to come out. I replaced the evaporator fan the fan blade and one grommet. In hind sight I should have replaced both grommets as they both showed wear. They are both exactly the same so you can order two of the above. All in all this is a pretty easy fix. It takes a bit of time, but it's not to difficult. Th most difficult thing was the wiring. The fan comes with a six prong connector and has four prongs taken up. There is, what I think is a temperature sensor, that takes up the other two prongs. Since I didn't order that part, I had to cut it out of the old connector and insert it into the new evaporator fan connector. This was a bit difficult and would have been much easier if I had ordered the part. Unfortunately, I don't know what that part is called, but it must be some kind of temperature sensor as it clips on the coil. The wires also run through a blue rubber wire-run that needs to be sliced open. This was pretty easy to do with a small serrated pocket knife. SLice it on the back side of it and pull the old wires out. When you are ready to install, just run the new wires through the hole from the old wires. Once you have replaced the fan the new blade and the two new grommets, it's just a matter of replacing all the equipment. Fan housing first, then the upper housing followed by the ice maker and the back panel. Good luck

went to your website and viewed exploded view to find the sensor( there are two I just picked one to replace for now), pried the cover off carfully and pulled out the sensor. I snipped the wire in the middle leaving plenty to work with. I shortened the wire on the new piece, spliced the wires together and with some 3M rubberized, tape wrapped them up, replaced the sensor back into the cover and snapped in place.

put fridge into test mode, failed One sensor. Took it out, Tested it, Ordered part also picked up splice kit from electric store spliced it truned on and good to go

Firt Removed the Ice Maker Tray and the full ice maker assembly. Removed the plastic shroud that sits over the fan assembly. Since the original connector (or the plug)for the motor had also a temperature sensor attached to it and did not know how to remove and trabsfer to the new motor connector I spliced the new motor to the old connector. It was fairly straight forward. Overall the job was not that difficult and since I was trying to be more meticulous it took a little longer. An average person can do it in around 30 to 45 minutes.