TBX18AGC General Electric Refrigerator

I applied some tips learned by reading other reviews. So before I started I grabbed my trusty vise grip pliers and a small screw driver. I locked onto the switch actuator, the part that the refrigerator door pushes in, with the vise grips and pulled on it just hard enough to get the screw driver inserted in the right side to push in the c ... Read more atch clip so the switch could be pulled out further each time the catch clip was depressed to the next detent. Then I used the screw driver on the left site to encourage the switch past the detents on the left and very quickly the switch was out of the mount. The wires from the refrigerator pulled out with the old switch. I unplugged the old switch from the wires and plugged in the new switch and shoved the new switch back into the mount, wiggled it a couple of times to make sure it was secure and the job was done. Once I applied the vise gripes at first, the whole job took less than a minute.

The old fill valve was leaking water at a very low rate, sort of like a dripping faucet. Water was then freezing up in the fill tube and funnel areas, eventually causing the fill tube to push out of the grommet and allowing it to leak into the freezer's rear coil compartment. This resulted in a large icicle forming on the left side of the ... Read more coils and defrost thermostat.

In addition to low icecube production, I also began to see excessively warm defrost cycles, due to the defrost thermostat being iced over. (Telltale signs--1.Ice cubes melted/frozen into a massive block in the bottom of the ice bucket, 2.Soggy frozen food boxes and soft icecream, 3.Water accumulating under the crisper drawers in the refrigerator.)

I ended up replacing the fill valve, which is about a 10min job, and also had to remove the icemaker and interior rear cover from the freezer compartment to de-ice the coils. This was a NECESSARY step as the freezer is not able to defrost and clear this amount of ice on its own. I used a small hair dryer, being careful not to get it wet. If you tap on the ice to break it up, don't use anything sharp. Just let it thaw--

My circa-1992 Kenmore fridge (363.9711780) does not show up at Sears Parts Direct anymore, but it's a GE unit, and in my case the parts were all listed in the owner's manual using GE "WR" part numbers.

Good Luck!

when the ice maker runs through its cycle, you should be able to hear the solinoid valve open, letting water into the ice maker. this was not happening for me. you can dissconnect the plug on the valve and put the two probes from a multimeter in the plug and set for AC volts. when the ice maker runs its cycle, at the end you should see t ... Read more he meter jump as power is applied to the valve then turns off. this means you do have power to the valve so the valve is defective. turn off water supply to the valve, disconnect the water supply tube to the valve, remove the screw holding the valve, disconnect supply tube to icemaker then hook up supply tube to bottom of valve, screw braket back to refrig, install suppy back to valve, turn water back on and check for leaks and your ice maker should be working properly again.
these guys were really fast on delivery too!