TFX25PABGBB General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

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 catch 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.

Our refrigerator is a double door unit with ice and water in the left door. The right door was the one with the problem. It was 5:15 AM when the problem occured. I could see that the door was out of alighnment and had dropped down - preventing it from closing. I lifted the door and closed it. I wrote down the model number and found a detailed drawing of the appliance on the web site "partselect.com". When the hing earrived I compared it to the broken one. I removed all the food stored on the door, put several pieces of wood under the door to shim it to the same height as the adjacent door. I then removed two bolts from the refrigerator with a 1/4" socket set. I put the shim from the old hing aside for later. I removed two bolts from the door with the same socket -Note a metal tab had to be bent silghtly so the wrench could go on the head of the bolt- I removed the plastic cam and made note of its orientation and that of the shim above it on the door. I put the shim and new cam in place on the door and installed the 2 bolts. I inserted the pin of the new hing into the hole in the cam (I had just mounted) on the door. I put the shim (the one put aside earlyer) behind the hing and replaced the two bolts. I held the shim and hing up against the door as I tightened the two bolts. When I was satisfied that the bolts were tight I removed the wooden blocks that were holding the door up so the door was supported by the new bottom hing assembly. The door now opperates perfectly and the refrigerator was not taken out of service for the repair. Total time including cleanup was a little over 15 minutes.

-Disconnect the power supply wire& turn temp control inside refrigerator to 0!
-15 mins spent on remove (5 screws) the back panel inside freezer, melt ice then replace the heater (2 screws) on the bottom! Black wire on left & pink wire on the right! Make sure both end has good connection to the heater!

-30 mins to drain all water from the bottom (back side) of the refrigerator, suck & clean all dust & dirt from the front & back side!

-Set both temp control knots to 5 & put back all the food!

-If no ice build up on the panel after 10 days & then the repair is good!

Removed shelves from freezer section and removed protective cover using a screwdriver and nutdriver. 5 screws.
Upon removal of the cover, I noticed the coils totally cover with ice. At this point I noticed that the defrost heater was burnt out. I removed the heater using screwdriver and pliers and tested the heater according to instructions from Parts Select website.
Since the coil was exposed, I also tested the defrost thermostat according to Parts select instructions and found it to be working properly. i also tested the defrost timer and found it OK.
I replaced the heater, closed the protective cover, replaced the shelves and plugged the unit on.
It has been working just fine since then..
In addition to saving money, i saved myself the agravation of looking for a repairman and having to wait for THEIR convenience to to the work.

Replacing the heater is very easy. Remove the wire racks and the two lower rack bracket screws. Remove the two screws to the back panel, unclip the ground wire and remove the panel. Two screws hold he heater on and two wires for the connection.
However, this did not solve my problem. The story is this. The fridge was getting warm because the coils were freezing over. I called the local repair guys "poncho and lefty" and they came out and replace the themostat and charged me $150. It still froze over a week later. They came back and said it must be the circuit board and charged me just for the $125 part. Nope, it still froze over in a week. So I thought I would take things into my own hands and tell poncho and left to hit the trail. I then ordered a new heater because the old one looked bad even though it checked out okay with an ohm meter. Unfortunately, that didn't solve the problem either. The last thing is to replace are the temp sensors. But before I ordered anything I submitted my problem to a "fix it" forum and someone suggested to check the part number of the themostat that was put in. This turned out to be a brilliant observation. It seems poncho and lefty replace the thermostate with one that is used with a timer. This fridge has the timer built into the circuit board and has a very different temp range than the one they replace it with. Their first clue should have been that the wires were a different color than the one they were replacing and that the part number was totally different than the one they took out. So I ordered a new thermostat and the three temp sensors and replace all of this and the unit works as good as new. The forum also told me that the bullet shaped temp sensor were faulty and should all be replaced, which I did.
Now I have all new parts, so it should be good to go until the compressor takes a nose dive. Hopefully, that will not be for 5 or 6 more years.

This is a sibe-by-side refrigerator/freezer that needed a new lower hinge set for the fridge door.

First I removed everything from inside the fridge door, closed it, then loosened the top hinge bolts with an 8mm socket on a 1/4-inch ratchet. Using an 8mm nutdriver, I removed one bolt and loosed the other just far enough to be able to lift the hinge and swing it out of the way. (These bolts are long. The nutdriver is faster than the ratchet but you need a ratchet or a wrench to first break them loose.) Then I just lifted the door off the bottom hinge and set it aside.

The plastic lower front grill was covering the lower hinge but that grill is just held at the ends by spring clamps -- popped off easily so I could get to the hinge bolts. Again, 8mm bolts, just remove & replace hinge. I also had to replace the upper half of the door closer cam, which is screwed to the bottom of the door, being careful that the holes lined up: cam, shim, door holes.

Now the tricky part was lifitng the door back on the lower hinge. (It helps to have an assistant at the bottom to locate the hole for you.) Once the door was up, I swung the top hinge over, ran the two bolts in finger tight with my nutdriver, checked & adjusted the spacing* of the fridge door and tightened the bolts. This was all very easy! (*^_^*)

*On a side-by-side, you'll want the door to be straight up & down with a consistent gap top to bottom with the freezer door. The hinge has some slack for adjustment by positioning the door, then tightening the bolts. You'll see what I mean.

Poped out with screwdriver the old swithch and unplugged the two wires. Plugged in the wires to the new swithch and pushed it back in the hole where the old switch was before.

Unplug refrigerator,remove the freezer bulb, trays and rear cover to expose coils and heating element/defroster, The telltale sign its bad was it looked like an old flashbulb/burned, the old one was open, melt enough ice to remove and replace the defrost element(2 screws 2 wires) and reinstall components, reconnect power, thats it.

The defrost heater failed. The coils frosted completely over so no airflow to the fridge. Step 1. Empty the freezer. Ice maker and top shelf can stay. Remove power, pull plug or open breaker. Step 2. Remove shelves and bottom food drawer. Step 3. Remove bottom food drawer rails. 2 phillips screws on each side. Step 4. Remove back panel, 2 screws at the top. Work panel out. Note there may be a green ground wire hook on it at the top. This will expose the heater and the cooling coils. The heater is at the bottom of the cooling coils and is the width of the coils. Step 5. There will be 2 wires, one on each end, and two phillips screws holding it in. Wires pull straight out. Note which way the heater is installed and remove the 2 screws. Step 6. Assemble in reverse order. Be very careful with the heater. It is in a glass tube and is very easy to break.

Simple job, empty the door shelves, remove top hinge, lift door off bottom hinge, remove bottom hing. The reassembly is the reverse, with a little cleaning along the way and a little white lithium grease on the hinge pins and cams.

I had to back-track acouple of times because I put the shelf brackets back in before I had the back panel in.It was also alittle tight getting the thermostat snapped back on the refrigerant line because it is a tight space and I have big hands.For a first timer who has had minimal experiance it wasn't too tough.

While the switch did last for 9 years, the design is poor due to the failure mode. The failure should be to fail off or not able to turn on the lights which would be inconvenient but would not warm the refrigerator contents. Arcing at the contacts eventually caused the switch to "weld" closed. It is not obvious that this is occurring so it took some time to recognize why the temp inside the ref was high while the freezer was OK. Replacing the switch was easy once it was recognized as the problem. All that was required to replace the switch was to remove the screws holding a fiber cover and then pulling off the aluminum cap which covered the switches. Unplug the switch an squeeze the keeper on the switch to release it and pull down. Pop the replacement switch in place and plug the wires harness back in. All in all it took much less time to replace than it has to write this up. T Pope

The existing light switch was very hard to remove. I ended up having to grab it with a pair of pliers and pull it out. Once it was out, it was very easy to put in the replacement and it seems to be working fine.

Unplugged the appliance for safety. Removed two 1/4" screws that held the assembly in place. Carefully removed the wire guard that retains the glass shield. Unscrewed old light bulb and replaced with new part. Reversed the steps after cleaning glass cover.

I used the same steps as described in other descriptions listed here. Since I was changing the hinge assembly on the freezer side the difference I discovered was that there was a nylon water hose inside the hinge assembly that I did not at first know how to remove. I finally called a repairman I happened to know and following his instruction simply snapped the hose loose where there was a connector and placed a cloth under it to catch the moisture that drained. Having done that, the rest of the assembly went just the same way as the other instructions listed here said that it would. Door now functions like new.