RC20LA-3AW-BS10C Magic Chef Refrigerator - Instructions

Ice maker assembly required disconnection of the wire harness at the back of the freezer and the removal of 3 hex nuts. The assembly did not come with a new wire harness nor the rigid wire attached to the hinge that can be raised to stop production of ice. The wire harness was easy to disconnect from the old assembly by pressing in on a tab. The rigid wire attached to the hinge simply required pulling straight out of the hinge-hole (no need to twist, slide, or perform other contortions...it does require significant force to remove, but it does pull straight out). It was simple to attach it to the new ice assembly. Reinstalled the 3 hex nuts and wire harness plug and was good to go....after waiting several hours! I was worried at first because the unit did not immediately fill with water after I plugged the fridge back into the wall socket. However, after the freezer was cold enough, the water did run and I had my first ice dump within about 3 hours of finishing the installation. We have good ice again, and Partselect has excellent pricing and awesome delivery! I received the unit the day after ordering, and I had only paid the basic shipping! Thanks Partselect! Jeff

Remove freezer contents, shelving, baskets, shelf brackets, basket rails. Then, remove the icemaker including the ice basket, the cube freezer and the motor assembly. Remove the back liner of the freezer compartment. Remove and replace the defrost heater assembly, using the old mounting brackets and connecting the wires to the same terminals. Reassemble. Discard excess screws :).

Replacing the icemaker is pretty simple. Three screws, an electrical connector. Hardest part is getting to the icemaker since the freezer is below the refrigerator.

There are basically three screws that hold the unit in place on the inside of the freezer. Removing them is relatively easy, and the unit is replaced with the same three screws. You do have to use the formed metal wire from your old unit, so don't throw it out! You also have to use the wiring harness from your old unit.

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

, to remove the inlet tube holder/guide gadget thingee: (1) remove the three Phlipscrews from the motor end of the housing. (2) pull the housing straight off the end. (3) remove two Philips screws in deep holes that hold the ice tray onto the motor housing. (4) this frees the ice tray assembly, which you have to pull out, freeing the rotating blades, from which (5) you slide the sxle out of the middle of the inlet-tube thingee, so (6) you can then remove the inlet gadget from the ice tray.

You then reverse these instructions to reassemble with the correct inlet gadget. The tricky part is the front cover that hides the ice-tray from view. That cover has a couple of ears that have to fit into mating holes in the motor housing before you replace the two deep-hole Philips screws that hold the tighten the ice-tray assembly back onto the motor housing.

So it's too bad they don't see the ice-maker assembly with all the knock-outs inplace, so you can knock out the one you want. Other than that, it would have been no more trouble than other people have reported in working in the tight space inside the freezer compartment.

The can drinks in refrigerator were not as cold as usual. I opened the freezer and touched the back panel and noticed there was a frost buildup. Since I have had this problem before, I knew that the defrost heater must be bad. I removed all the shelves and the tracks. The back panel is held in by 8 small sheet metal screws. I removed the screws and pulled the back panel up and out. The refrigerator is in garage, so I put a fan in front of it and the fan melted the ice off the coils. I disconnected the wires and checked the the heaters (both wired together) with an ohm meter. The meter showed the heaters to be open. (bad). Actually only 1 of the 2 heaters were bad, but I replaced both of them since they are wired together as a set.

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.

Frist pulled everything out of freezer put in refridge then took out ice maker box then removed ice maker motor removed back panel took hair drier defrosted the coil then removed bracket screws that hold heaters in place removed bad heater, the hardest part of the job was getting the wirers back around the coils when done just reversed the process.I have a side by side so there was not a whole lot of room to work with. I only weigh 160 lbs it was a tight fit for me. But all in all it went well.
Thanks

As per instructions. Removed parts from old ice maker, and installed them on new one, Then installed it in the freezer. Works good.

I made use of instructions for other users, see 'My ice maker has been shedding.....' and they were very helpful. The one problem not covered - the instructions that came with the new icemaker said to 'remove the bearing and inlet from the old icemaker and install in the new icemaker', but gave no instructions for how to accomplish this.

The old inlet has a square opening in the back and a u-shaped knockout in the side. The new one has a round opening in the side and square knockout in the back)

After several attempts to remove them, I gave up and used the new inlet with the knockout removed. I did not attempt to cover the side opening and it worked fine that way - no leaks.

Instead of the ice maker unclipping from the wall after one 1/4" screw being removed from the bracket, I had to remove three of the 4 Phillips head screws from the ice bucket slider below the ice maker and swivel it down to allow the ice maker bracket to clear. The two 1/4" screws holding the ice maker to the wall at the top had to be removed and then the ice maker could be pulled away from the freezer wall. The rest of the instructions went according to the video and went well.

I did not do the repair yet, there is no schematic on how to route the hose; also no description of how to do the routing/connections.

evaporator coils were frozen solid and air wasn't flowing across them

read all directions first, then consider which steps you'd like to take

in any case...
- check for blockages in the upper and lower air vents that allow air from freezer side to cool the fridge-side
- inspect that the fan in the freezer side is actually turning and not blocked


- if no blockages and air is flowing between the sides...

- unplug the unit
- remove all goods from freezer and fridge
- remove freezer side racks
- remove rear panel on freezer side using philips screwdriver (note that the ice-cube tray motor housing must be freed by removing its screws. it can be pull out a bit to get to a single screw holding the top of the rear panel in place)
- allow the evaporator coils to evaporate all ice off, checking the drain pan under the fridge frequently - accelerate the process using a hair dryer or paint stripper (heat gun)
- disconnect the white wires from the connection block located about 2/3 of the way up the rear wall and check resistance using an ohmeter (see specs on back of fridge on circuit diagram)
- if you get a very high resistance reading, the heater element is likely broken. if so...
-- remove the 2 metal shields located horizontally across the evaporator coils (behind them are the two series-connected defrost heater elements)
-- visually inspect the elements - if they are discolored green or black, remove and inspect more closely (most likely they are blown, just like a light-bulb filament that shows black on the glass)
-- if you see nothing, remove them anyway (since high reading) and check connectors
-- replace them (likely only $30 to $75, depending on type)

- if coils seem ok, or if not suspect, check the defrost thermostat WHILE IT IS STILL IN A WORKING/COLD FREEZER.
- get the defrost thermostat into a coil chamber (other freezer or bucket of ice?) and check resistance using an ohmeter. It must be WELL-BELOW 40F to test it. When it is truly immersed in cold (as it would be in a working freezer), test the resistance. it should be 0-ohms when <<40F and some much higher resistance (>200KOhms) when > 40F.
- if not, replace it

-lastly, if neither the defrost heater elements are bad nor the defrost thermostat is bad, open up the defrost timer
-- the defrost timer is located in the fridge side, likely with the fridge thermostat knobs/controller
-- it is a 5-pin part that cannot be repaired. If all else is checked, most likely the defrost element is never coming on because the timer is not turning it on

had to saw off the shaft to get the yoke off and tap the holes for the 8/32 screws. all holes should have been tapped by the factory. Other than these problems, everything else went pretty good.