59679142991 Kenmore Refrigerator - Instructions

At first I thought the fan motor was vibrating the back panel of the freezer. Nope! It was the evaporator motor itself, with worn out bearings creating an off balance fan. Most of the time was spent on removing and replacing the frozen food before getting at the back panel to expose the fan. It was good to find and toss out a few treasures we had forgotten about down there. It's good to have someone with long arms for this job, as the fan is on the back of the freezer, and you are sitting on the floor to begin with. Thanks PartSelect.

Emptied freezer. Removed ice maker. Removed screws and back panel. UNPLUGGED POWER CORD. Unplugged wires to motor. Removed motor housing and replaced with new one. Reversed procedure to assemble.

inserted a knife between the switch and the plastic interior in order to pop the switch out.
then took off the 2 wires on the old switch put them on the new switch and reinserted the switch into the plastic interior.

I took a chance and ordered a switch that is next to the top of the door. looked for how to remove it easily done in ten minutes works fine last long time.

removed cover in back of freezer and observed that defrost cycle seemed to happen too often. In comparing the existing part # with the factory part, I determined that possibly the wrong part was installed previously. (it had a 6 hr cooling cycle with a 45 min defrost...spec said I should be 8 hr cool & 20 min defrost) I did research on applianceguru.com... well worth the 5 bucks! I ordered a timer & thermostat & purchased a special refrigerator brush to clean the coils on the bottom. Cleaned the coils, replaced the parts in about 15 minutes and WA-LA! the freezer started getting really cold, but the fridge wouldn't get below 55. but it FELT cold! I swapped thermometers with the freezer & found out the thermometer was faulty!!! I now have the cool control backed down to 5/7 & freezer to 6/7. temps are freeze 0 and cool 40. works better than since we bought home 5 yrs ago! research & troubleshooting took a bit of time, but by the time I ordered parts I felt very comfortable I had the right parts. All said, cost me about 40 bucks instead of probably $200 from tech... schematics from partselect.com were very helpful as well!!

After unplugging the appliance I needed to thaw a large ice buildup off the evaporator cover panel before I could even remove the panel. The freezer being on the lower part of the appliance has the evaporator mounted vertically and it was 100% encapsulated in rock hard ice. It took over an hour to thaw the ice and collect all the water with a shop vacuum, since the condensate pan began to overflow.
One thawed, I checked all wiring for good connection, checked heater, defrost thermostat, timer unit with multimeter. The defrost thermostat checked out fine after putting it into another freezer for a 15 minute cooldown, but I noticed a crack in the seal and suspected internal moisture and decided to replace that part. A simple plug in of two leads to the new part after clipping it to the evaporator, replacement of the panel, and the appliance was up and running problem free.
A workbench disection of the old part confirmed my assessment, it had internal rust and water and had failed causing the defrost cycle failure.

I was told to order the run capacitor and the technician thought it would repair the refrigerator; but it did not. The appliance technician had to take the run capacitor off and install what he called a "hard start" and the refrigerator is operating right now.

removed back cover, removed fan motor and replaced with new one. connected new power wires. worked right away

Pop off six mounting screws and the ground screw. Remove the fan blade and reattach. Reinstall. Save yourself big bucks.

I removed the ice maker with 3 screws after having shut off the water. I tried getting the part locally but thought it was a bit much. Of course after having had ordered the wrong part, PS51041 and having it over nighted here and paying the return shipping I would have saved money getting it locally. When I finally got the right part I used the power cable and level lever off the old maker and reinstalled the ice maker in just a few minutes with a nut driver and screwdriver. Thurning on the water in about and hour it started making ice. When ordering online make sure you can get a large enough diagram to see what you are getting. If you can't ,call their phone number ant talk to a live person.

Our refrigerator is about 29 years old. We were told once that a gasket repair would cost more than a new fridge. Not so. It cost about $230 for both the fridge and freezer gasket. We had some rust that had developed from not replacing them sooner around some of the screws. They had to be cut out and replaced with the next size up to hold well. We cleaned everything thoroughly including behind the door compartments. We took those off the door. The guy in the video doesn’t do that. We replaced our freezer insulation also as it had gotten wet and was completely frozen. Overall, it took much longer because of our neglect over the years and believing someone when they said to just buy a new refrigerator. We love this one again, as much as we did when we bought it. The gaskets fit perfectly and after taping the doors shut overnight, they seal extremely well. We are very pleased.

Most difficult part was finding where they hid the defrost timer. (it is in the left front under the fridge behind the kick panel.) just unscrew the two fastener screws from the front, tilt fridge up on one side, slide timer bracket back and remove. Unplug and remove timer from metal bracket. Replace timer and remount bracket.

It's self-explanatory. The procedure is obvious; it's just a little difficult. The only hard part is attaching the mounting brackets to the fan. If you can't tighten the mounting bolts, loosen them and reposition the brackets. You might end up mispositioning them at first, because they are hard to reach.

I left the new seal out in the sun to warm up, while it was warming up I took the door off of the fridge and laid it flat. I removed all of screws holding the plastic shelves in place, removed the old gasget fitted the new one and reinstalled the door.

I took the cover off of the evaperator in the back of the freezer compartment and thawed the ice out with a heat gun. I then replaced the bimetal defrost timer I did have to change one connection as it would not plug into the harness.
I found the Defrost timer in the front of the refrigerator behind the filter cover at the bottom. Just one screw and a quick plug in and everything is working wonderfully. no more icing up