DFE28JGHDBB General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

Had to remove all the covers and fans to expose the condenser, which was difficult as the parts were frozen to it. The styrofoam covering the condenser made it almost impossible to defrost it. Therefore, I ripped the styrofoam off to expose the condenser. Was not really difficult to fix the styrofoam cover using metal tape. Replaced temperature sensor in aluminum block, and used butyl sealant to secure. Had to also re-install parts of ice-ball kit that were not well covered. Lots of parts to keep track of, but anyone could do it.

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!

First, I had to remove the freezer drawer front. This is 8 large phillips head screws. then remove the plastic cover over the drawer slides. to do this, remove the white center screw from the slide near where it attaches to the drawer front. then the plastic cover will slide off pushing to the rear of the slide. take off the slides from the freezer walls by removing the phillips screws and pulling them towards you. They have tabs/slots in the rear. remove the center tray support and support bars, too. the icemaker has to come out, that is just 2 phillips screws but you also have to disconnect the electrical connector. just squeeze the locking wings and rock/pull. a screw in the top center of the back panel comes out. Lift and pull the back panel out. The evaporator coil appears. The thermocouple is attached to the coil in the upper right. Cut that one's wires and take it out. Just cut back about an inch from the back of the thermocouple, there is not much slack. Seperate and strip the wires back about 3/8 inch. Do the same for the new thermocouple. I twisted the wires together and used a solder sleeve to join the wires. The sleeve is just a little plastic tube that has a ring of solder in it that melts with heat gun heat. You can join the wires using butt connectors or whatever method appeals to you. I just wound the extra wire and put a cable tie around it, there is plenty of hiding space in that area. Make sure the new thermocouple is contacting the coil firmly.At this point, for a test, I left everything apart, propped the drawer against the opening and plugged the fridge in. Note that the evaporator fan will not start spinning immediately! It will just sit there making little bumps like it wants to go. The temp in the coil has to get settled before the electronics in the refridge will tell the fan to spin. It takes maybe 20 minutes. Reassemble. Fridge and freezer work great. It does take several hours for all to get cold again.

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.

Unplugged the refrigerator first....then on the inside of the fridge, I popped the temp sensor cover off (upper LH side) and exposed the old sensor. I snipped off the old sensor about 3" down from the end and connected the new sensor (which I trimmed down to about 3" long) with some heat shrink wire nuts/connectors. Let the fridge run for a day or so and confirmed the problem was solved! Oh yeah, there was no way to tell the 2 wires apart (power vs. ground) on the sensor. However there was a manufacturer's stamp on the wires. So note the orientation of the text and mark one of the wires with a sharpie on both the old and new sensor before trimming. This will give you a reference for which wires to connect when adding the new sensor to the old wires.

There were only 3parts listed to check omed out the defrost heater and thermostat ....thermistor checked bad ordered replacement took less than 2 minutes to replace after I defrosted it again runs fine

as per video

removed the inside fridge electrical panel and swapped switches

easy pry out, disconnect wiring, connect on new switch and press in switch.

Gently pry out switch in door jam with screwdriver and pull both connectors off and put connectors on new switch then push switch back into the hole. Looked it up on the internet and video showed how to and also had link to new part, ordered and less than a week later the fridge is bright again. I have an older freezer also and it seems that they all use the same switches. Very Very easy

Temp. Sensor was under an egg shaped cover on the left side wall in the refrigerator. Remove the cover, cut the two wires to the old sensor and remove it. Connect the new sensor to the two wires using butt connectors. Replace cover and done.

My son replaced both temperature sensors and the fridge works great now!!! Like brand new again!!!!