GSS20DBPJWW General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

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.

Can’t repair it yet. Because it’s taking you too long to send me my parts. Tried calling but your answering service conveniently won’t answer. Had to cancel first order and reorder hopefully to receive faster.

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.

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.

Replaced both the Defrost Thermostat and Defrost Heating Element. The You Tube repair video clips were extremely helpful for both operations. My difficulty was getting access to the parts that needed to be replaced in a very tight side by side freezer space. Otherwise, the repair went smoothly and the refrigerator is back in normal operation in time to save the perishable food inside.

After unplugging the refrigerator-freezer and emptying out the contents I snipped off the refrigerator thermistor, stripped off the wire insulation and used a butt splice. That did not solve the problem. So, a day later I unplugged the refrigerator again, transferred the freezer contents to a newly purchased small freezer unit, took off the back panel inside the freezer portion, and saw a large amount of ice build-up on the silver coils inside. This ice was quickly melted off using a hair dryer and packing towels below this accumulated ice. Then I snipped off the two freezer thermister sensors and the defrost sensor. I soldered the wires together for a hard splice, wrapped the individual wires with rubber electrical tape, and then wrapped that with plastic electrical tape. After re-assembly, the refrigerator-freezer has been working flawlessly for over a week at optimal temperatures.

I followed your video and completely dismantled the refrigerator evaporator motor, fan, brackets, and grommet, I completely cleaned the refrigerator including the cooling coils. I then ordered the evaporator motor ,fan, grommets, lid bumper, and brackets. The order would take a week to arrive. In the meantime I cleaned and reassembled all the old parts, waiting for the new ones to come. Guess what! The refrigerator was quiet as a mouse. I really did not need the new parts, but I kept them anyway just for good luck. Not bad for a refrigerator that's twenty four years old.

Laying on my side.

Attempted it on my own with the aid of the video on your site, but could not remove the fan shroud due to additional copper lines that prevented me from getting it out.
Gave up and called an appliance repair guy. He had a novel approach: Don't pull the fan shroud (with motor attached) out, but instead remove one of the screws holding the motor into the bracket, then bend the bracket to get the motor out.
All good until we powered the fridge on again. Now the fan works, but spins faster (and makes more noise than) the original fan.
The repair guy's comment: "I've seen that before with some of the aftermarket fans."
Nice! I'd appreciate getting the right part when I order the part from your website based on my fridge model number.

I didn’t do the repair because I ordered two grommets. When they arrived, one of the packages was empty! Instead of just sending me another one, they refunded the part so I still need one. By the way, I was not refunded half the shipping either which was more than the part itself.

Must have spent 10+ hours solid looking up info on the internet. Our ice maker had broken years ago, the door flap had broken years ago and I thought this was the end of a fridge after just 6 years 8 months.

GE offered a "broken appliance" warranty for $379 for one year, with no guarantee that when a technician came to look at it, the repairs would be covered by the warranty!!! No thank you, you just want me to buy a new fridge. Okay, challenge on, I'll fix it myself.

I took everything from the back of the freezer out. Spent an hour defrosting (note: use hair dryer next time). Ruled out a motherboard problem (even though it appears I have the old style motherboard), removed dust build up from fan intake. I could not get the heater to come on, so I cut off the thermostat defroster and connected the wires together. The only way to get the heater on was to set the freezer control to 0 / zero.

So, ordered part from partselect.com and it arrived the next day!!!. Installed and unit appears to be defrosting okay after a week.

So now I'm back to order the ice maker part. The door flap will wait for another time.

Note: I've put in the time for novices and recognizing how the freezer is constructed.

Time includes taking everything out of the freezer section, unscrewing everything, diagnosing problem, fixing the problem, putting everything back. I would say allow 3-4 hours and pat yourself on the back if you do it quicker.

Note#2, if you have a large build up there is a hole in the floor of the freezer section. If the water does not evaporate it will run out of the hole and into your wooden floors! Place towels both inside and outside the unit just in case!

I started out replacing a bad thermostat, no problem,
when I hooked up the water, I found that the water resovior had a leak.
I replaced the resovior, easy fix, but I had to buy two 5/16 brass couplers.
then I found that the box would not get below 10 degrees, and the suction pressure was very low.
I figured that the fan motor was burned out, so I opened up the access covers, the fan motor was hanging there with broken mounts, so I replaced the motor, and repaired the mount.
Everything works great now, The parts shiping was very fast, I was impressed.
I thought I was going to get away without fixing everyones
HVAC problems when I retired.
Friends and family still remember that you are the HVAC man.
Tom

After reading posts on this website, I determined I needed to replace the defrost heater. Removed heater to take a closer look and after testing with a voltmeter determined it needed replacing. Ordered part online and could not believe how quickly it arrived. Blue wire that travels down the left side of the freezer coils had some damage on the end of the plastic connector so was pleased to find that I was able to splice the extension wire provided in the defrost heater kit onto the blue wire and dispose of the damaged end. It's been about 10 days and I do believe my problem has been solved!

Parts select sugested checking the freezer side on the side by side if there was frost on the back panel. I took the back panel off on the freezer side inside the freezer. I found that the freezer coils were full of ice.Had to use a hair dryer to melt all the ice. The heater element was bad on the bottom of the freezer. I ordered a new defrost element an installed in 40 minutes and is running fine.You can still use the refrigerator until the new part comes in if you melt off the coils.It will last about 2 weeks.

Attempted to remove whole bracket per PartSelect YouTube video. Our refrig must have been slightly older or something, because the bracket would not come out no matter how much we begged and pleaded. ~ So we replaced motor in place, which was a headache, but doable. Seems to work fine, and much quieter than the old motor.