TPG21PRDABB General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

I had made a dry run at the repair after watching the instructional film provided by part select and it seemed easy enough.
The only problem was that i needed to use the electrical cord extender (provided) to adapt to my plug type. That presented a problm because it needed to be tucked up out of the way to allow the ice bin to clear. Just needed to be creative in how you wrapped the cord behind the ice maker unit before snugging the attachment screws.
Cranking out ice like crazy.

Replaced flapper valve per website instructions. GE factory technician took two weeks to get here, charged over $100 for the call and told us we needed a new refrigerator door at a cost of over $500 to fix the problem. We sent him packing. After visiting the PartSelect website, the $5.88 PartSelect flapper valve fixed the problem. Amazing.

At the front of the shelf there is a Phillips metal sheet metal screw that holds the front of the shelf in place. Its removal was fairly set straight forward but removing the pop rivet was awkward and took some time to drill out from the rear metal shelf. Once the rivet was out, it was easy finding a small screw that would hold the shelf in place since I didn't have any pop rivets that would fit sufficiently tight or long enough.

The only difficult part was not knowing which parts had to be removed to gain access to the flapper to replace it. It appeared as if the frame around the control panel would have to be removed as well as the door handle; we tried but were not able to remove the frame. It turned out that the panel just popped out with the frame in place. Once we had access to the flapper, it was easy to replace it. The repair fixed the problem.

Replaced flapper. Followed the video. The lamp caused the removable plastic bracket (which supports the control panel and the ice chute) to fuse with the plastic frame in the door. Eventually broke the fused plastic, removed the bracket, and filed the rough broken plastic before reassembly.

Remove front cover did not remove wires remove ice and water unit took off flapper put new one on 5 minutes back together

Had to defrost the freezer to melt off all the ice before servicing. Once that was done the icemaker replacement only took about 15-30 minutes to complete. The new icemaker came with many accessories and adaptors that were not needed and the instructions were based on replacing an older model and not really clear for my model. They mentioned not being able to use the new stripper but it was exactly the same as the old one so I left the new one in place. All in all it was easy and did the job.

Opened, discovered not flapper but more complicated

It seems my refrigerator was old enough [1987] that the spacing on the holes for the bracket were different than the part that is currently sold. The holes on the new bracket were 30 mm apart on center, but on the old bracket they were 20 mm apart on center.

Clamped the old and new brackets together in a vise to use the old bracket for spacing and drilled a new hole through the 4mm of steel.

After which it was a snap installing the new hinge assembly.

Use small putty knife to cut internal sealant on ice maker door trim piece. Then you can easily remove it.

I removed the plate covering the water valve for the ice maker and water dispenser, removed the nut holding the 5/16" tubing to the valve and took off the tubing and nut. I did not need to turn off the water supply or unplug the unit. I removed the kick panel in the bottom front of the refrigerator, replaced the existing plastic fitting with a new push-on fitting, then spliced the tubing coming from the water chiller to the valve where the leak was thus bypassing the broken tubing with new tubing. I reassembled the valve using the original plastic compression nut, replaced the cover and ran the water dispenser while checking for leaks. The water dispanser works great with no leaks.

the previous left behind a side by side, everything worked however the auger in the ice bucket was a little rusty. I wish that I could say it was all me but the truth of the matter was the videos on file.

They were nicely done and easy to follow as I took the unit apart and replaced the auger in about 30 minutes. Thanks for all your help in part look up.

Part attaches to metal plate near crushing fingers which attaches to ice holding bin. Remove about 6 screws total on each side of plate. You must disassemble the auger & other parts so you can reassemble it in the proper order. Not many parts but i always take pics to cut down on time. New part is at the other end of the auger and acts as the holde of the auger shaft. Picture a crankshaft with a bearing on each end so the auger rotates between new part and the other end of auger shaft. That's it.

The ice bucket supports had split, and broken away from the refrigerator wall causing the ice dispenser bucket to sag, and bump and grind. The b&g wore away the ice screw support at the rear of the bucket, causing intermittent ice dispensing. The ice bucket was removed to allow access to the ice bucket supports. The supports were attached to the refrigerator by two screws. One along the front side, the other at the rear attached to a protruding tang. One of these broken off, the other was stuck, and had to be forced off its mount. The rear mount was expanded by drilling a slightly larger hole to accommodate a nut and bolt assembly. The new support units were re-attached to the refrigerator front and back using screws and the nut and bolt in the appropriate places. The ice bucket installation was a tad more difficult. The hardware from the original bucket was removed and installed on the replacement bucket. This proved to be a bit tricky remembering the exact location of the parts, and coordinating the screw mechanism with the driver mechanism. The ice fill starter switch is a bit unusual in that it has to go into a slot that is not visible when inserting the ice dispenser bucket into the ice maker compartment. You have to finagle the bucket into place and get all the parts in the correct slots. It was a piece of cake for the average husband.

Really simple, I used a can of soup and a small piece of wood set under the door, and tapped it tight with the hammer to hold it in place while I removed the hinge. Two bolts at the bottom and two under the door itself. Installed the new hinge set, bolted tight and removed the shim.
The whole thing took less than 5 minutes