77275-P1311201WE Amana Refrigerator - Instructions

This is a bottom freezer refrigerator. First I unplugged the refrigerator. I then removed the wire shelf and wire tray from the freezer. I then removed the ice maker be removing the three screws that hold it in place. I then disconnected the icemaker electrical connector. I then removed the 7 screws that hold the panel at the back of the freezer revealing the evaporator and heat exchanger. I then unclipped the icemaker wiring harness from the panel. The whole evaporator/heat exchanger was buried in ice. I defrosted it with a hairdryer. This took about half an hour. The bi-metal thermostat is attached to the heat exchanger by a clip. Be sure to wear latex gloves to prevent cutting your fingers on the aluminum fins. I disconnected the electrical connectors and then carefully unclipped the thermostat. I discovered that the new thermostat had spade connectors where as the original had one spade connector and a bullet connector on the brown wire. I reused the original bullet connector by cutting it off the old thermostat and splicing it onto the new thermostat. I reversed the process for reassembly. There is no longer any ice build up and the refrigerator is working normally.

Once I saw the replacement part I understood how to pry out the switch with a small screwdriver. Then just unplug the old one, plug in the new one and pop it into place.

The PartSelect site made it easy to correctly identify the correct part, it was inexpensive, and the shipping was fast.

I'm very pleased!

Turn water and refrigerator off, use hair to thaw the ice maker filler tube, then remove the filler tube inside the freezer. Next remove the water supply line cover plate in back of the refrigerator. Now remove the speed clip at the white pvc elbow and pull out the supply line. Next, grasp the pvc elbow with pliers and pull hard to remove. The new filler tube is a 1 piece design (filler tube and elbow combined) and needs to be cut to the proper length. Mark it inside the freezer, remove it and cut to length. Now coat the outside flange with caulk or PU glue and snap into the opening. Put the speed clip on the elbow first and center it. Ensure that the spreader insert is in place in the plastic tube, then slide the supply line into the elbow untill completely engaged. Replace cover.

Remove the back hardboard cover screws for access to the condenser fan. I opted to tip the fridge over on its side for even better access to the fan mounts and wire. Replaced the fan assy (reused the fan). Splice the wire and it's done.

My husband replaced the condenser fan. It took awhile and a few choice words but he got it replaced. The fan seemed to work fine, but it still wasn't cooling. I noticed that when we had the fridge unplugged that water started draining out the dials at the top of the fridge under the freezer. And there was absolutely no water at all in the drip pan under the fridge. So I took the doors off and totally took the inside of the freezer apart. I discovered that the styrofoam on the floor of the freezer had become inudated with fluid and the under the foam the coils were all frozen solid with ice. Hence not allowing any drainage. I put a lamp in the freezer area and defrosted all the ice. In searching the internet i discovered that they no longer produce the foam so i went to home depot and got a piece of foam and aluminum foil and cut it to replace the ruined foam. I put the fridge all back together said a prayer and crossed my fingers and lo and behold it works perfectly now!!!!

very easy.....
1. removed the food items from the shelf
2. raised the shelf and removed the broken support post
3. inserted the new support post and guided the drawer rails to rest in the new support slots
4. cleaned the glass shelf and replaced the food items
5. made my wife very happy now that the veg drawer opens and closed like new.

removed the three screw holding the broken unit - pulled off the old module.

Before I could install new module I had to loosen some fasteners on ice maker so I could turn shaft to align with new module.

Then push on new unit and three screws. Had tumbling ice in about an hour. My wife thinks I'm a hero. (I am)

First I removed the Ice bin, I then loosened the ice bin rail under the ice maker and removed the screw that attached the bottom of the ice maker to the side of the fridge. I unplugged the power to Ice Maker from the back of the fridge and unscreewed the two screws that secured the ice maker to the fridge. This allowed the Ice Maker to be removed from the fridge. To replace the new ice maker I simply repeated the steps in reverse.

I saw on a partselect web site that these symptoms could be caused by a failed condensor fan motor. After removing the cardboard panel in back of the refrigerator I noticed the fan was not running when the rfigerator was. The fan was held in place by three brackets. I unscrewed the screws holding the fan motor to the brackets and also unscrewed one of the brackets to make room to pull the motor out. I cut the wires close to the motor. I removed the fan blade and secured it to the new motor. I had to reroute the old wires in order to have enough slack to use wire nuts to attach them to the leads on the new motor. I then re-attached the motor to the two brackets remaining in place and then re-attacehed the third bracket I had removed to get the motor out.. The most difficult part was working in a very confined space.

The ordering was easy, however the installing was very difficult. Screws all around door had to not only be loosened but most had to be removed in order to get gasket behind the lip. We (my 17 yr old daughter and I )unscrewed the top and half way down the the sides and did half and half. The job took us approx 4 hrs. In all fairness neither one of us has every done anything like this and we were very proud of ourselves for accomplishing the task. When the gasket was in place we used the blow drying to smooth the gasket. Probably not anything I would attempt again because of the time committment, however, I was trying to save some money.

Someone suggested removing the door, however, I couldn't figure out how to do that. On the up side, it did give me the confidence to replace a screen door myself. You tube helped me with that. ( I couldn't find a "how to" on how to install this gasket at least not for this type of appliance.

After moving the refrigerator away from the wall I removed the cover on the lower back of the unit by removing the screws that held it in place. The condenser fan was not turning and there was heat build up in the area causing the refrigerator to not work properly creating elevated temperatures in both the freezer and regrigerator. Removal of three torx screws from the original motor was all it took to get the motor free. By turining it and working the fan blade around the mounting bracket I had the motor out in just a few minutes. Replacing the new motor was just as easy to reinstall. The fan was removed from the old motor and placed on the new for installation. The original motor was wired to accept a connector from the wiring harness of the refrigerator. I simply cut the connector off the wiring harness and stripped the insulation from the wires which easily allowed me to connet the wires of the motor and harness with two wire nuts. Three self tapping screws were used to hold the motor in place replacing the torx screws. Installed I plugged the unit in and immediately the fan started spinning as the unit came to life. Cleaned and replaced the cover over the back and slid back into its spot. Running as good as it did when it was new. Easy job to take care of.

Philips head screwdriver and ten minutes was all it took! I removed the two screws that hold the icemaker assembly in place, then pulled it out a little and disconnected the electrical plug freeing the icemaker assembly. Then I snapped the external parts off my old icemaker assembly and snapped them on the new icemaker assembly. Installing the new icemaker assembly was just as fast and easy. I snapped the electrical plug into the new icemaker assembly, then screwed in the two screws. It was making ice shortly thereafter. Glob free ice! I'm glad I didn't call a repairman. I probably saved a hundred bucks. A ten year old could accomplish this simple and easy task. No wonder the Maytag repairman has time on his hands.

There is already a lot of good advice on this web site and others on how to diagnose and do this repair. I'll add a few additional comments that might be helpful.

I wanted to confirm that my old thermostat was in fact bad. I did this by disconnecting the two connectors and connecting them to each other to bypass the thermostat. This is like having the thermostat always closed. With the back panel still open so I could see the frozen coils I plugged the fridge back in and turned the defrost timer knob with a screwdriver to get to a defrost cycle. I could then see the heater element slowly melting the ice. This is of course not a safe way to operate the fridge. Over time this would get too hot and damage the food or worse. I only did this for a few minutes to see the system operating. I did not melt all the ice at that time. Also, it is of course dangerous to plug the fridge in with the panel open, so a great deal of caution is advised.

When I got my new thermostat I wanted to confirm that it worked before going through the install procedure. To do this I cooled it down and then used an ohm-meter to see that the circuit was closed. The important thing I found out is that ice-water, even 2 parts ice, one part cold water, was not cold enough to do this. Only when I put the thermostat into a cold freezer for a while did it get cold enough to close the circuit. I did this side by side with my old thermostat and saw that it was in face bad -it never closed the circuit.

This part from Part Select was an exact match for this freezer-on-bottom Whirlpool refrigerator. The connectors were identical so I did not have to solder wires together as others have need to do.

Some people get the ice off of the coils with a hair dryer. For me this could take half an hour. What worked better and much faster was spraying warm water on the ice with an old spray bottle. This adds extra water to the mix, but it did not overflow the drain pan. Even if it did, it would be easily mopped up if you can roll the fridge out.

One last thing. I suspect this thermostat broke in the winter, but with the dry air the fridge worked for a long time. Once summer hit and the house got humid, the coils iced up quickly.

Good Luck!

Turned off power to Refrigerator.
1)Removed broken light switch, using a screwdriver, to gently pry it out. Then unlugged the switch from the connector. I used long nosed pliers to gently pull out the connector from inside the frig, so I could easily plug in the new light switch. I then pressed the new light switch back in place.
2) Remove light cover. I then unclipped the socket which holds the light bulb, I gently pulled it out and unplugged it from the two wires. I then attached the two wires onto the new light socket and clipped it back in place. Bingo done with both items practically no time!

I ran all the ice maker module tests that I could find online, I tried cleaning the contacts inside the ice maker control module, nothing worked...so I finally decided to purchase a new control module. I had already had the module out and taken apart a few times, so the new one was very easy to install. Just removed the entire icemaker from the fridge, removed a few screws, took off the old module, put on the new one, replaced the screws, re-installed the icemaker in the fridge (it just slides in and out similar to a shelf). And 30 minutes later I heard the first batch of ice cubes drop! And by morning the bucket was nearly full. After two weeks of no ice and trying to fix it myself - the family was glad to have ice again (it was July in NC!). In retrospect, I should have followed the advice I found online and ordered the new part sooner and saved all of those frustrating hours of trying to "fix" the part myself.