XSS23GSKNCSS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

First let me remind you my husband is disabled so it was up to me to do the repair. I'm 70 yrs old. I first removed everything from freezer and then removed the back cover removimg 4 screws,then i removed the old defrost unit which held 2 screws replaced with the new one then i had to put cover back in place..then put everything back in freezer and so far its working...Only time will tell.But the part was so reasonable that if if i have to i will get another..but not for a while i'm hoping,

After inspection of the new door recess assembly, I realized that I could use sidecutters (electronic assembly type) and 'clip' off the inward lock tabs of the old recess assembly and disengage it from the crank door arm without any further disassembly of the refrigerator door. It was easy to 'unhitch' the tang from the crank arm and wiggle it out through the external opening of the ice/water dispenser compartment. I reversed the process and inserted the new assembly through the external opening of the compartment. The new door recess assembly snapped into place on the crank arm and fit tightly against the ice chute opening, correcting the issue caused by aging distortion of the old rubber seal cup portion of the door recess assembly.

Removed cover exposing defrost heater. Defrosted the cooling system. Removed screws holding defroster, replaced old with new, by way of two quick connect eletrical clips. replaced cover. Pretty easy once I figured our that it was the defroster and not the timer.

i unplugged the fridge, first i removed the racks, then unhooked the grounding clip. the i tool off two 1/4 nut screws holding the backplate. then i used my wifes hair dryer to thaw out the ice. after it thawed out i unscrewed the element bracket which is secured by two philips screw. after taking the screws off, its just unplug one end at a time and plug it to the new one to avoid confusion. then reverse install to put back together.

By the time this failure (failed defroster heating element) is evident (top of freezer starts thawing), the entire freezer coil is encased in a block of ice & frost is visble on the back freezer panel.
Empty the freezer & unplug (or turn circuit breaker off) then remove all racks and the light bulb then remove the two lower drawer guides using a phillips srewdriver (2 scrwes each). Use a 1/4" nutdriver to remove the two panel screws on either side of the light bulb socket and pull the panel out, unclip the green grounging wire and set panel aside. this exposes the freezer evaporator coil which is probably encased in ice. If so, use a heat gun or hair dryer to melt the ice away. This takes a half hour of heat application and a bowl or other catchpan should be placed under the coil to remove some of the resulting melting runoff so the evap. pan under the fridg/freezer unit won't be overwhelmed with the excess water.
Replacing the defrost heater & bracket assembly itself is just a matter of removing two phillips screws on either side of the bracket assembly, pulling the bracket free and then uncliping the two electrical terminals. Clip in the new unit to the eletrical terminals & replace the screws, reinstall the rear panel (don't forget to reconnect the ground wire), install the drawer backets, light bulb, shelves and drawer & reapply power. Replacing the bracket itself w/o the defrost proceedure takes about 15 minutes.

Note: If this symptom occurs and is diagnosed (the heater tube will be black and electrically read as "open" using an ohmmeter) and you cannot get the heater assembly & bracket assembly immediately, you can use the heat gun (hairdryer) manual defrost proceedure noted above to get the the unit running while you await the parts arrival. I used the manual defrost procedure and there was just some moderate frost on the coils after five days when I was able to install the replacement part.

Removed cover in freezer over evaporator,unbolted element ,plugged ,and replaced, very simple. Should be first thing checked when theres a problem.

First I removed the ice tray rack lifting it out of the way to reach the back cover of the fan. Then, the whole back inside panel had to be removed. Two screws removed the fan and bracket from the freezer unit. The missing bumper lid just snapped into place. Replaced everything in reverse order. Pretty easy job.

The only difficult part was not knowing which parts had to be removed to gain access to the flapper to replace it. It appeared as if the frame around the control panel would have to be removed as well as the door handle; we tried but were not able to remove the frame. It turned out that the panel just popped out with the frame in place. Once we had access to the flapper, it was easy to replace it. The repair fixed the problem.

Cut old tubing in frig with wire cutters and pulled through the bottom wall and removed old tnak from the wall...Installed new tank and ran tubing down trough lower wall and connected to the valve and the freezer door.

First, turn off power - since I did not want to pull the refrigerator out on my wood floor I tripped the circuit breaker to that circuit and opened door to make sure interior light was off (ensuring power was off). This unit has a bottom freezer, I took out all shelves, ice maker and all parts in the way of accessing back of interior of freezer section. Removed back plastic section by removing one screw in middle top of back panel and prying it out. This was a bit difficult as it was in there a bit tight but once the plastic warmed up it pulled out ok. This revealed the compressor section and temp sensor that was attached to the copper coils with of all things - a zip tie! In pictures of this that I looked at on various web sites the sensor was on a metal bracket attached to the coil so it made me wonder if tf the factory took a shortcut? I cut the old sensor wire, stripped the two wires 1/2", and connected them to the new sensor wire with butt connectors, I put some silicone into the ends of the butt connectors to prevent moisture from entering into connectors and wrapped the connection in black electrical tape. I then "attached" the sensor to the coil using a zip tie, put the plastic back piece back on, inserted everything I took out and put power back to refrigerator. It's been 3 days and temp of refrigerator is stable, ice maker not clogging up, and compressor not running all the time! So far so good.

Let me start by saying, I usually hire something like this out but figured I would give it a try. The install was fairly straight forward, however it would’ve been nice if the instructions would have been more useful. Instructing me to remove one screw to release the auger and solenoid enclosure wouldve been nice. There were 3 other screws that I didn’t need to remove and they were the ones holding the auger in place, which made assembling that much more difficult. Once to enclosure was removed, and the solenoid was exposed, it was a seemless process. I would however, recommend paying attention to or taking a picture of the connections on the solenoid. I was lucky to remember or got lucky. Regardless, I was able to complete the project successfully. If I had to do it again, I believe it can be done in 30 minutes or less.

I watched the video a couple of times and followed the instructions exactly and the repair was very simple. This repair took me a bit more time than I thought it would just because I followed the steps methodically.

But the video was perfect to guide me through the procedure to replace this part. One of the longest parts was removing the shelving and food storage bins, cleaning them, drying them and then putting them back in after the tank was installed.

In preparation, I removed the bottom crispers and shelf to clear space, and removed the hood and items above the tank near the light. You'll need to also move the fridge away from the wall to access the back. Installation seemed very easy - two screws holding the tank itself, one hose to the water supply in the back, and another to the bottom of the freezer door to dispense. Then the hard part started after it was installed. First, I could hear the click but no water was coming out. After several views of youtube videos, I realized there was a plug in the hose to the supply side. Duh! So now I had water, but also a slow drip when drawing water. I believe the issue was that I was not pushing the hose on firmly enough, and eventually I got it right. Also, you need to understand the connector: there is a little ring around the place the hose fits; pushing it TOWARD the housing releases the hose, and pulling it back AWAY locks the hose it place. That was not clear to me without watching a youtube video.

The most difficult part of the repair was the melting of the ice and preparation. I did change a single element heater for a dual element heater, which required a little manual flexing of the sub-frame, but it assembled with little issue. I was lucky, I did not have to splice the extended harness connection. Rerouting my existing gave sufficent length.
Not sure if the single elements were changed for dual, but it did have the same PN as the unit I replaced.

This is such an easy fix!
1-Unplugging the fridge and emptyi it. Remove all shelves.
2-remove the 2 screws at the top of the back panel with a 1/4 inch nutdriver. You'll have to tilt ithis panel forward and sideways to get it out.
3- DO NOT CHIP AT THR ICE COVERING THE COOLING COILS? Replace one shelf and rest a hair dryer on low heat on the shelf.. Plug the drain hole at the bottom with a rag so all the melted ice water doesn't flood the floor under the fridge. Soak up the water with a rag and bucket- this should take 20-30 minutes.
4-Remove the red and blue power cables from the element. Only 2 philips head screws hold the defrosting element in place. Once it's out you can tell it's burned out because it looks black like a burned out lightbulb.
4-Plug in the red and blue power cables to the new unit. You will need to reroute the blue power cable because the new unit has both power connections on the same end.
5-Replace the cover panel by sliding it in at an angle and replace the 1/4 inch screws.
6-Replace the shelves and plug in the fridge.
That's it!