ESL22XGRABS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

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.

First I removed the two screws that hold the element in place. I then pulled the element out about 3 inches and disconnected the two wires, it was really simple. I conected the new element & defrost themostat (instuctions were included with the parts). I replaced the cover pluged the fridge in everything was woking fine. I placed a themometer in the fridge & have been watching it for 2+ weeks now it is working fine. To anyone who is looking to do this repair, on thier own, I reccomend it. It was very simple & required little to no skill. No reasopn to throw away money to call a repair man.

Repair took about 5 seconds. No directions necessary. Super easy.

Turned off the water. Removed the maintenance cover plate on the back of the refrigerator and disconnected the tubing. Removed the tubing cover plate on back of refrigerator. Removed two screws from filter hosing mount on the inside of the refrigerator and pulled the old tubing out. Simply inserted the new tubing and mounted the housing and reconnected the tubing using plumber’s pipe compound. Then re-installed the cover plates on the back of the refrigerator, installed the filter and turned on the water. It was a very easy install.

after changing the water filter and having no improvement. I went to the next part of the system. Turned off the water supply. I removed the bottom cover in the back of the refrigerator. unscrewed the nuts on the water supply hose from the main supply and the one going back into the fridge. moved to the inside of fridge and unscrewed two screws holding the filter mount and pulled the tubing through. Reversed my steps and the water flow was great . Thanks

I did it the way you recommended except rather than removing the existing tube from the water valve at the bottom of the fridge I cut the existing and new tubes and then spliced the new tube to the old tube. I already had the splicer nut so it was quicker and easier. By the way, shipping was very quick and you prices and your website are excellent!

After mopping up the floor - the whole freezer that was iced up melted - that's how I found out about the problem...

Disconnected the power, emptied the freezer, removed the shelves. Under the ice maker was the light cover - I removed that first, then the two screws holding the back panel in place - The light panel was covering the top screw.

With the screws removed, I pulled out the back panel - which needs to be jiggled around a bit to get it past the shelf brackets.

With the cover off, I could see the mostly de-iced coil at the back of the unit. The defrost heater was visible at the bottom of the coil frame. To remove the bracket/heater, I removed the two cross head screws (one on each side) holding the bracket to the coil frame. I then twisted the side tabs of the bracket assembly and pulled the entire bracket/heater/wiring from the coil frame.

With better access tot he bracket/heater I was able to disconnect the wires. I grabbed the new bracket/heater, reattached the wires and pushed the bracket/heater back onto the coil frame and closed the side tabs firmly attaching the bracket to the frame. I then screwed the tabs back onto the frame.

Replaced the back panel, screwed it in place. Put back the light cover and then the shelves. Turned the appliance back on and left it for a few hours - before checking to see if there was any drop in temperature. There was, so after 24 hours or so I reloaded all the food...

NOTE: I was certain that the heater had failed! When I pulled the OLD one out it was obviously burned out - the glass tube was blackened and pieces of the element could be seen in the bottom of the tube.

So I replaced a burnt out defrost heater; replaced the thermostat for good measure and STILL the freezer compartment was freezing up. WHY didn't I look more closely at the ice making system sooner!!?? Thought about it for a while and decided that it had to be that the solenoid in the water valve was NOT shutting off water flow to ice maker (overflowing the icemaker and running over & down interior of freezer compartment making an icberg).

Took off about 4-5 backcover screws with one size nut driver. Moved to a size larger driver to remove 1 screw holding on the water valve. And what some people don't realize is that you can push in the connectors (push them down) and THEN pull the water lines out as long as you're careful and someone hasn't already tugged on the waterlines with some force. You don't have to cut the lines off at the valve. Put the water lines in the new valve and put one screw back in it; then 4-5 backcover screws and you're done!!! At most 15 minutes...that is if you want to clean the condensor unit located behind the backcover (on the newer models within the last 4-6 years).

EASY!!! Do it yourself and save a BUNCH of money. If you're getting a flooded freezer compartment or icebergs created in there then check whenever you hear the icemaker drawing in water and see if water is running down the interior.....problem solved!

The ice machine auger blade broke a chunk off. I decided to try to replace it myself. I bought the new auger blade and then sat there and stared at it and the ice machine for a few, trying to figure out how to change out the part. Turns out it was a qute lengthy process. The auger is threaded on one end and the ice chopping blades are on it. So I had to take each blade off the old one and put it on the new one. The blades have to be positioned just right on the shaft so it's best to just draw a line down over all the blades so as to put them on the new auger successfully. The problem I had was the end cap that screwed on the end of the shaft. It was the part I ordered here. It is made of plastic with plastic threads and at first I couldn't figure out to get it off. Turns out the threads are opposite normal. By the time I figured that out, I had just about destroyed the cap using pliers to try to unscrew it. There is a washer and half moon clip that fastens on this end nut so if you mess the nut up, chances are you won't be able to get the half moon clip to go back on. I finally did it right and now how the ice maker working right again. A hard part for me was figuring out how to set the spring shaft that works a lever to either give cubed ice or crushed. I had to keep fiddle with it before I finally got that right. At first I was only getting crushed ice even with the cubed setting and then only getting cubed ice with the crushed ice setting. After some fiddling, I got both to work but to this day can't figure out what changes from the crushed setting to the cubed setting.

First, I removed all the shelves and the light guard. Second, I removed the nuts that held the fan guard and the freezer back in place (2 just under the fan guard and removed the freezer back. Third, lifted fan guard out of way (being very careful not to crack it..... cold plastic). Fourth, unpugged fan from pug then removed nuts that held fan bracket in place...removed fan. fifth, then removed fan blade and remove fan motor from bracket, removed two wires that went to freezer light (pay attention to where they go) and installed them into the new wireing harness. Sixth, installed fan blade on new motor, bolted new assembly in fan bracket, plugged in and reistalled fan into the freezer, replaced fan guard and freezer back (reverse order of above) and then replaced freezer racks. works beautiful.

Pull plastic trim piece off refridgerator door,unclip printed circuit board and remove wires unscrew dispenser housing,and remove. Transfer Ice funnel to new dispenser housing with old spring. Reinstall dispenser housing and printed circuit board.

I had taken the noise long enough and wanted to get this repaired. I didn't want to pay a repair man hundreds of dollars to do it so i decided to do it myself. I went on to YouTube and found a few videos that showed me how easy it was to do (very helpful).

I wasn't so sure all that noise would come from the Evaporator Fan motor so i ordered it and took the chance. For the small cost, it was worth the try.

All went well accessing the unit and removing the old part. Very fast indeed. However, the snag came when i went to plug in the new part electrical to the existing electrical adapters. The old part had 4 lead connections. The new part had 6. and the wires on the new part were different colors than the existing. I had to use some logic and courage to cut the wires on the new part and rewire the old adapter to this piece. Luckily, i wired everything correctly.

Calling Part Select got me a phone number for the parts manufacturer to help with the splicing but i opted to do it on my own.

The result is i have a noiseless refrigerator again. What should have taken 10 to 15 minutes took half an hour because of the wiring but overall, very easy.

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

Checked the internet for reports of similar problems and concluded that it was probably the main control board. Not being particularly handy, I would never have attempted to change the board myself if I had not read the comments and instructions from people on this site. Thanks.

The job was as straight forward as others have described. The only time I had a problem was pushing in the white tab to be able to pull the old board out. That was a bit of a fiddle.

The only thing I found different was the grounding wire. On the original board, this wire was at the bottom of the board and hooked into a wire that ran into the refrigerator. On the new board, the wire was at the top of the board and had a metal loop on it. If I understand it correctly, with the new grounding system the wire is pushed into the space above the board. Then when the back plate is reattached the metal loop makes contact with it , thus grounding the refrigerator.
I chose to run the grounding wire through the original wire into the refrigerator. That meant cutting off the metal loop, slicing in an extra piece of wire to connect the grounding wire on the board to the grounding wire into the refrigerator.

I also now use a surge suppressor for the refrigerator. The “Moaning Myrtle” syndrome started after Hurricane Ike. I suspect the surge when the power was restored damaged the control board. And as so many people seem to have this “Moaning Myrtle” problem, I suspect the control board has little or no surge protection.

First my wife and i took the panel off the back, unscrewed the old mainboard, unplugged all the switches from it and prayed that the new one would work. We were without a fridge for 2 weeks beginning 2 days before Christmas!!!!! Gingerly, we put the new board in place, screwed it into the fridge, connected the switches, attached the ground wire, and held our breath as we plugged it back in. Within seconds, the familiar sound of water filling the icemaker was hear and there were cheers all around!!!