GWE19JGLTFWW General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

My brother-in-law is a 15 year refrigeration technician who I called and described the problem to. He told me to put an "amp clamp" on the line side of the wires (black) that go to the starting controls on the side of the compressor. The motor has a label that has a number on it (LRA) that he used to determine the max amps it would pull. In this case, if the motor pulled 10 amps, then the motor was bad and I'd have to buy a new refrigerator. It was pulling less then 9 amps so he thought to buy a new overload, since the capacitor checked out (measured by multi-meter). As soon as the part came, I removed the back panel (4 screws removed by nut driver), removed the clip that holds the overload/capacitor assembly, detached the two wires from it, and removed the capacitor from the overload. I swapped in the new overload and repeated the above process in reverse. The only difficulty was that the new part was different in that the plug-in locations for the two wires were in different locations, and not marked. I had to disassemble the old part to figure out how it worked so I could deduce how the new one plugged in. Once that was solved, it was a quick fix. This was not a repair that just anyone could do; it required someone with a lot of experience to help me, and I am an engineer.

Followed the repair video, was spot on!!

luckly i have a bit of experience in refrigeration im an hvac technician by trade. this repair was a bit tricky in that i did not know at first if it was a Temperature Sensor issue or the main control board. I had tested the defrost termination thermostat and the defrost heater and as i suspected they were ok. Next i wanted to test the thermistors (temp sensors) it is hard to find technical data on these fridges. I needed to test the thermistors resistance @ a certian temperature to ensure they were working properly but where do u get such data? I also wanted to know some information about the logic programmed into the board (i.e when do you initiate defrost etc. . .). I had no such luck so i figured since i tested the defrost heater and thermostat and they were ok and all of the evap fans and such were working i'd order a circuit board and new thermistors. Got the CORRECT PARTS from this site in 2 business days and my fridge is working great! changing the parts was really easy, figuring out which parts to change was the only difficult thing about this job.

Condenser fan motor was running slow. This was not a problem included in your list of possible problems. I thought that maybe the capacitor was bad but have no way to check it. So I ordered one. when I received it, I installed it. That was not the problem. So I ordered a fan motor and installed it. That was not the problem. So finally I ordered a control board and installed it. That solved the problem. So maybe you should put "cond.fan motor runs slow" in your list of possible faults and what causes that problem. Capacitor was easy to install, simply remove the cover plate, flip off retaining wire, unplug the capacitor and replace. Fan motor was a bit more difficult. It must be removed from mount after fan scroll is removed. Remove one screw that holds scroll, bend the top down and remove. Then pull hard on fan blade to remove it. It must be installed on new motor. Two screws in frame mount can be removed with some effort if you have a 1/4" drive ratchet with a Phillips screwdriver bit. Then pull frame open and install new motor. Push fan blade on new motor shaft hard. Replacing control board was easy. I used a pair of long nose pliers with 90 degree bend to get mounting pins closed to pull board off.

What an awesome site! After putting in my model number and finding the problem I was having, I simply picked the 2 parts that were most likely to solve the problem. I bought a defrost thermostat, and defrost heater. To a high certainty, they would solve my problem. They didn't however! I ended up having to buy a temperature sensor on another order a few weeks later when the problem resurfaced! My own fault. I should have bought it the first time. As others have written: the longest part of the job is defrosting the ice from the coil. One thing I did that I didn't see suggested: plug the drain hole below the coil. I put a couple towels in the bottom of the freezer and ran the hair dryer. Didn't take long. I read that the amount of water created will overflow the pan under the refrigerator, so I plugged the drain hole. Once you clean that mess up, the repair is pretty straight forward. Great site. Even through I had to make two separate purchases, I still saved a lot of money. Thanks!