GSS20DBTECC General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

1. Unplugged the refrigerator 2. Vacuum inside of dust 3. Unscrewed motor and fan 4. Replaced motor then fan 5. Plugged refrigerator bingo! :)

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.

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.

1. Unplugged the fridge. 2. unplugged the fan connection and removed the wire holding clip. 3. removed the 2 screws holding the motor bracket in place and removed the bracket. 4. Pulled gently back on the motor so that the fan pressed against the front bracket until the fan slid off the motor shaft. 5. Pulled the rubber motor mounts off of the old motor and placed on the new motor. 6. Slide the new motor in place pressed the fan all the way onto the shaft. 7. Placed the rear motor bracket in place and started the screws by hand making sure the ground wire was attached to the furthest away screw. 8. tightened the screws down. 9. Pushed in the wire holding clip into the clip hole. 10. Plugged back in the fan. 11. Plugged back in the fridge. 12. Turned down the temp on the fridge to kick on the compressor and checked to assure the fan was operating and then set the temp back to normal. 13. Vacuumed the condenser coils to get them all clean and ready for more years of service!

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.

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!!!

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.

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.

took one screw that held the whole fan housing on, its a tight fit to try and pull it out cause of the copper lines in the back so I just turned it enough to where I could get to the 2 screws on the fan bracket, took the old fan and the rubber grommets out and replaced them! Put everything back together and works like new! Nice and quite! Plus I saved about $200-300 if a tech. would have came and fixed it!

A. Gustafson
Colorado

After figuring out how to remove the old broken clip, replacement was easy. Had to use a small putty knife to open the release on the bottom underside of the clip(between the clip & the refrig) . By looking at the replacement piece it was easy to figure out.

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 had Sears comre and check it out. They wanted $188. for the part and wanted $211 to put it in. They had the part in the truck. The fridg is a GE Profile and only 2 years old. Told them to forget it. Took me literally less than 10 minutes. They did a diagnostics, cost me $77. they told me the problem. I ordered the part here. It came in 3 days and the directions included were awesome. straight forward. Nice to know there is a place to go to avoid getting the shaft from appliance giants. Thank You !

The details: removed the 3 screws, took a picture of the board, didn't need it, unplugged the 6 plugs. pushed 3 clipds holding the board, unscrewed the ground, removed the board, lined up the 3 clips and snapped the new board in place, replugged the plugs and screwed in the ground. Plug the fridg in, done. Literally that easy.

Part arrived very fast as ordered..need to pry old switch out from top..use care to push the retainer down..after old switch was 1/2 out, I used a putty knife for better leveridge.Remove wire connector...after plugging in the wire connector to the replacement switch, make sure the switch is properly positioned so the switch will depress when door shuts.

The refrigerator was staying in defrost too long allowing the temperature to rise to the point that part of the ice (probably some of the food too) to melt then re-freeze. I first changed out the temp sensor and thermostat because I wanted to try the cheap stuff first but that didn't fix it, I should have gone with the mainboard first as it was the most likely cause. After putting in the new mainboard in the thing has worked perfectly since. The board was extremely easy to change, take the metal cover off with a nut driver. Carefully unplug the wires from old board and remove the board. The board is mounted on some plastic standoffs that expand after passing through the board, some of these came out while i was disconnecting the wires but some were there to stay until I figured out that I needed to squeeze the top of them to release the board. After getting the old board out just put the new one on the standoffs and connect the wires. Put the cover back on and DONE!

NOTES: The new board had some extra connectors that my old one did not, but the correct connectors were still in the old locations. The instructions that came with the board did talk about making some modifications to the refrigerator wiring on certain models, but that didn't apply to me. If I remember right the models requiring modification were all bottom freezer type. But even if you do have to do this the instrucions looked easy, just cut a couple of wires, no splicing or anything.

My GE refrigerator emitted high pitch noise a short while ago. I tried different dampening methods that helped but not eliminating the problem. I finally replaced the fan, motor, and associated parts and solved the problem. The total cost was about $50.