GSE28VGBACSS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

I used a digital camera and photographed the assembled unit and the metal blades before I started the repair. Then, I removed the top screw on the clear shield. Flip over ice tray and removed two Phillips screws on bottom. Exterior plastic white cover comes off next. The cover sides have hard push-in white plastic tabs. Push them in; pry up top cover with small flathead screwdriver. Slide white top cover up and you will now see the metal blades and assembly. Auger is held in place with a metal c-clip and washer on the end. Use flat head screwdriver to pry off c-clip. Then you will see a nylon round slotted nut. The threads are reverse, use pliers and loosen nut. It is not that tight but pliers are needed. Then it all is loose and ready for removal. I slid all the blades off at one time and kept them stacked together. Slide out auger and clear flat shield cover. Install new auger, clear shield, and metal blade stack. When you put it all back together take a look at the long metal J-hook on the bottom make sure it is in the slot before you make everything tight. Failing to do this will prevent cubed ice from dispensing.
It is not that hard to do the repair it just takes some patience and paying attention to details.

After replacing the defrost heater, main board and thermistor I still had the same problem. Called a repair guy and he (with the help of GE on the phone) diagnosed that the temperature sensor was bad. So I ordered from partselect and installed it and it fixed the problem. Been good for a couple months (knocking on wood). To install I had to cut the 2 wires to the old sensor, crimp the 2 new wires on and snap the new sensor to the clip on the evaporator. Very easy. Make sure you seal the ends of the wire crimps so moisture doesn't get in and corrode the connection.

The flap to the ice dispenser would not close, which allowed the ice dispenser to frost up, freezing the water dispenser.

This was a simple fix. The solenoid had stopped working, so it would not automatically close the door flap. I read some posts on this site that suggest that you had to remove the trim around the entire dispenser to get at the solenoid. My fridge may be a newer model, but in any event it was much easier than that. Just below the touch pad for choosing water, ice, or crushed ice (above where the ice/water dispenses) there are three very small holes spaced about an inch a part. After unplugging the fridge, I stuck a small philips-head screw driver in each, freeing spring clips. That allowed the touch pad to come off. I then removed four screws to remove a plastic piece covering the chute, giving me access to the flap and solenoid. I just unplugged the solenoid from the circuit board on the back of the touch pad and then removed three screws to remove the old solenoid. I replaced it with the new solenoid and plugged it into the circuit board. The touch pad then snapped back into place.

The hardest part was figuring out how to get at the solenoid. After I found that pushing the clips in those three holes allowed me to remove the touch pad, it could not be any easier.

I went to a GE repair center to explain my problem, the service center reccomended that I have a techinician come out o look at it. $75.00 for the visit and what ever labor and materials wuld cost.

I went on line to see if there were others having this same problem and found that there were many with the same problem.

After reading some of the ways that people found out what was wrong ...it became a matter of three components, the timer, heater or thermostat.

I tried the most common component and the less expensive one first , the thermostat switch I installed it very easily snipping two wires and attaching the news using wire nuts I used the diagram on this website to pinpoint the component and there has not been a problem since.

My repair experience was a little more complicated than previous posts, but nothing major. And most importantly replacing the Fresh Food Air Inlet Cover did fix my problem. Here are the steps I followed:
1. You will need to remove a minimum of the top two shelves to get access to the Air Inlet Cover. It runs along the back of the fridge and connects to a hole to the freezer side. It has a little fan inside that sucks the cold air from the freezer and diverts to the top and bottom of the fridge.
2. As mentioned in other posts, there are four screws holding the Inlet Cover in place, 2 lower and 2 upper. To get access to the lower two screws,you simply pop off the lower duct assembly (squeeze the sides). Be careful when removing and installing these screws. If you drop one into the lower duct, you will add a few more steps to the installation to remove more shelves and take out the lower duct to get to where the screw fell. Obviously this happened to me. Not difficult to do, just adds more time.
3. To access the upper two screws I had to remove the top light cover (one screw) and then slide out the top duct/diffuser assy (my name, not GE's).
4. Finally to get clearance to pull out the Inlet Cover, I had to remove the water filter and cover. When you pull away the Inlet Cover, you will see the electrical connection that is simple to disconnect.
5. After I removed my Inlet Cover, it was obvious that it was broken because it rattled and I could peek inside to see that the plastic air diverter/flapper thingy was broken.
6. One final surprise was that the replacement Air Inlet Cover did not exactly match the one I removed. The replacement only had one upper air outlet, while my old one had three upper outlets, left, right and center. I noticed there was a plastic cover over one of the side outlets on the replacement, so I just popped that off and hoped for the best.
7. The replacement Air Inlet Cover Kit came with sticky back insulation that you attach to where the Inlet Cover meet the freezer access hole to make sure snug fit to limit extra cold air leaking into the fridge side.
8. Installation of the replacement Air Inlet Cover was fairly easy, just follow the above steps in reverse and make sure you don't drop any screws.
It's been a couple of weeks since I performed this installation and my fridge has been maintaining temperature perfectly. No more frozen milk or lettuce. The wife is very happy.

I read in a previous post how to do the job from outside fridge which saved me lots of time. No need to remove inner door lining. Here is my procedure:
1.Turned off power. 2.Snapped off outside trim ring. 3.Located three small holes inside lip just above ice tube. The center hole was not used. 4.Pushed rather firmly up through two remaining holes with small Allen wrench to release front control panel. 5.Removed (3) wire connectors from printed circuit board. Firmly pull/pry them straight out as lifting on retaining clip will break it off. I broke one & had to elect. tape it back in place later although I doubt it would have ever come off. 6.Release secondary panel by removing (4) screws. The problem was obvious as the solenoid had broken the crank arm off the flapper rod & trapped it open 7.Replaced solenoid, crank arm with flapper attached, spring & micro switch. Switch was okay but I changed anyway. 8.Cleaned all areas with 1/10 bleach water to sanitize. 9.Re-installed evrything in reverse order & all is okay. Thanks to someone for telling about those two small holes. Made job easy versus a very hard one.

I removed the old temperature sensor by cutting the wires. I attached the wires of the new sensor with wire nuts and mounted it in the same bracket.

First of all, the larger white plastic tubes in this thing are 5/16" OD, which no plumbing store seems to stock. At the lower left rear end there are 2 tubes, one for water and one for ice, that are doomed to fail being in proximity of a heat source - they essentially get cooked to the point of becoming brittle and cracking. The smaller tube and union can be easily found, but do yourself a favor if the larger one cracks and order the plastic tube and water tube union here, and just cut off the brittle part and amend the old tube using the union.

1. Turn-off water
2. Removed drawers and bottom three shelfs
3. Remove screw inside refrige that is holding the water tank in place
4. Remove bottom front grate on fridge (2 screws) and disconnect water line from quick disconnect (residual water will run out of line)
5. Remove bottom cover on back of fridge
6. Disconnect water line from quick disconnect on bottom left side when looking from the back of the fridge (residual water will run out of line)
7. Remove water tank from inside of fridge
8. Install new water tank - install screw that hold water tank in position
9. Route lines through hole and to the two locations you removed the old ones
10. Install both lines by pushing them all the way in the quick disconnects. Pull on them to make sure they are secure.
11. Turn on water and look for leaks
12. Reinstall bottom front grate (2 screws)
13. Reinstall back cover (5 or 6 screws)
14. Install shelfs and drawers inside fridge

1) Removed the ice bin and emptied the ice.
2) Removed 5 screws total
3) (hardest part) JImmied a flat blade screwdriver into the left top side of the housing and pried gently to disengage the plastic holding clip. This only allows the left side of the housing to move up about a half-inch. Did the same on the right side and 'walked' the assembly out of the bin.
4) Removed the C clip and washer that holds the auger. and removed the auger assembly.
5) Before removing the screw at the end of the assembly, it is a good idea to take pictures of the ice crushing part of the assembly so that it goes back on correctly.
6) Removed the screw and carefully stacked the ice crush blades and washers.
7) Installed the ice crush blades on the new auger, re-installed the screw, washer and C clip.
8) Re-assembly is easy, you just need to set the end of the auger in the back of the ice bin and slowly re-install the housing portion.

This story starts with a GE side-by-side refrigerator that has always had wide temperature swings and a temperamental water dispenser. The ice maker was not making ice, and the built in digital thermometer showed it was running warm. I suspected that the heat exchanger was full of dust and so looked there. What I found was that the condenser tank was hot to the touch and the fan wasn’t running. As an experiment, I aimed a fan at the it for a while I saw that the freezer temperature dropped back to normal.
.The fan is marked as 11.2 DC so I checked for voltage at the fan and found some. With three wires and no wiring diagram I wasn’t sure this answered all the questions, but hooking the fan to a 12 volt power supply didn’t get it to spin.
I priced parts at a couple websites before using partselect.com . They also have a good diagram to look at (Sears diagrams are really poor). I ordered the part with 2-day shipping; it arrived on time, was correct and fixed the problem.

Remove Ice maker bin from the refrigerator and empty. Unscrew the three Phillips head screws that secure the front plate to the bin and gently lift and pull the tab that secures the interior portion of the plate until it clears the bin. Once you remove the front plate, it will expose two side tabs on the front of the bin which must be depressed so that the plastic insert that hold the auger in place can be removed. Isolate the auger with the from the unit by rotating the parts off the shaft. The ice crushing blades are attached to the auger and can easily be removed by twisting the plastic nut off with pliers. The cutting blades will now slip off the end (make sure you study the orientation of the blades as each piece will come off separately and make the job unpleasant when you go to put it back together). Now that the auger is out, just reverse the process and you have a "new" ice dispenser. Works like a charm. The diagram furnished by PartSelect was very helpful and accurate if you get a bit lost, especially when putting the crushing blades back together.

Removed rear and front grills,brushed and vacuumed area- probably caused the fan motor to fail- unplugged fan, removed fan,motor,and shroud in 1 piece, carefully slipped fan off motor shaft, unscrewed shroud and motor. assembled in reverse order. Frige is in tight area, .I'll now roll it out and clean often

I inserted the tip of a very small screwdriver from a eye glass repair kit into the three small holes under the panel near where the ice is dispensed. I never would have known about this simple procedure if it wasn't for the feedback you post from your parts cumtomers. Once I did this the front panel with the buttons on it poped off and it was just a matter of removing a few screws at that point. The wires from the new solenoid easily plugged into the board on the front panel. I would recommend changing the screws at the same time. The old one's worked but they were rusty. I feel the solenoid was my only problem but I changed all the parts in between the dispenser door and the solenoid just to be sure.

Removed the ice bucket assembly and attempted to dismantle and re-assemble it the same as new
after replacing the auger. I wish the part was shipped with replacement instructions because a simple job turned into a major headache for me because of the following:
1) I did not realize that the the nylon nut at the end of the auger rod assembly has a reverse thread. By the time I had it removed using vice-grip pliers and a bench vice.....the nut threads were stripped.
2) When removing the nylon washers, spacers, metal cutters from the old auger rod, I grabbed the entire grouping hoping to drop them on the new auger rod as a group. While doing so, the pieces slipped out of my hand and It was very difficult to find the correct order of configuration even with the on-line parts photo. I would recommend that you number each part before removing them from the rod because there is only 1 way all of these pieces can be re-assembled to work as designed.