Refrigerator and freezer stopped cooling and began to thaw.

The repair is pretty straight forward it is the preparation that takes time.
The food in the freezer portion of our side by side began thawing. We tried adjusting the temperature level to colder but to no avail. When we started emptying the freezer compartment I noticed a large amount of frost/ice at the back.
I turned the control to off and began defrosting the freezer using my wife's hair dryer. :) Once the outside layer was defrosted I removed the panel covering the coils. They were packed solid with ice and took over 30 minutes to defrost. Be sure to use a pan or container to catch some of the water because the catch pan under the refrigerator isn't large enough.
Once everything was defrosted I removed the heater tube assembly (at bottom of coils)it was a glass tube with a coiled wire element inside. The element had shorted out and the tube appeared black in that area.
I replaced this single tube heater with the double tube recommend on the partselect.com site. This required re-routing one of the wires and splicing in the plug/wire assembly contained in the repair kit.
Simply followed the instructions, reassembled everything and turned the control back on. No more problems. A very easy repair for anyone mechanically inclined and who owns a few basic tools.