Defrost Thermostat

Step one: disconnect power. Step two: remove contents of freezer. Step three: remove trays. Step three: remove screws holding back panel with 10 mm nut driver or socket: Step four: pull top of panel slightly away from back of frigerator to reveal light bulb connection and disconnect the two prongs by pulling upwards. Step five: pull panel ... Read more upwards and towards yourself to remove. Step six: if condenser is iced over, use hair dryer to melt. Step seven: locate thermostat and unclip from from condenser: Step eight: cut the two wires close to the old thermostat: Step nine: using knife or wire strippers, peel plastic covering to expose wire. Step ten: If available. use round wire connectors by inserting exposed wire into and squeezing ends with pliers. Pull wires after squeezing ends of connector to verify good connection. Step eleven: use heat shrink to slide over connection. Step twelve: slide other end of wire into round connector and squeeze end as before. Step thirteen: slide heat shrink over your connection. Step fourteen: with wire connection at midway point in heat shrink, use hair dryer to heat by blowing air along the entire length of heat shrink, moving slowly. Heat from dryer will shrink plastic onto connection and protect from moisture. Step fifteen: loop any excess wire and tie wrap in location above or on top of condenser, like as done by manufacturer. Step sixteen: reverse process of attaching panel, remember to attach light connections before attaching panel.

Removed food in Freezer and turn it off after frost melted I removed shelves and panel in the freezer with the nut driver. Found the Defrost Thermostat and cut wires and spliced in the new Thermostat. Put everything back in place and refrigerator is now working perfectly.

The first thing I did was completely defrost the refrigerator/freezer using a hair dryer, cleaned the dust from underneath the refrigerator/freezer and tested to see if that was the problem. Within 2 days it iced up again. So the solution was as follows... (0) unplugged the power cable; (1) removed all the drawers; (2) removed the ligh ... Read more t bulb cover and bulb; (3) unscrewed the lower panel - 5 screws to remove the panel (we had to disconnect the wires to the light by just pulling them off.) and exposed the freezer coil; (4) used a hair dryer to defrost the freezer coil and expose all the wiring; (5) identified the thermostat on the coil which was the defrost thermostat (and took a picture of it so i could put it back the same way); (6) unclipped the thermostat from the coil; (7) checked the markings on the old thermostat to ensure they matched the new one in terms temperature zone for the thermostat; once verified we (8) cut the zip ties bundling the wires together just above the coil; (9) cut the 2 wires close to the old thermostat so that we could strip the old wires and install the new unit; (10) after striping the wires, we used heat shrink butt connectors and crimped the new wires with the old wires then heated the butt connectors with a heat gun to seal the heat shrink around the connections; (11) wires were re-bundled away from the coils with two zip ties; (12) reclipped the thermostat on the coil; (13) attached the power to the light; and (14) reinstalled the back panel with the 5 screws. I let the refrigerator/freeze balance for 6 hours and found everything worked and was within the correct temperature range. I check the vent to the coils and noticed that it was not icing up so all is OK. I picked up the heat shrink butt connectors at Harbor Freight - very simple repair which beats buying a new refrigerator. Searching the this site and google was very helpful.