BNS22F5 (5L53A) Maytag Refrigerator - Instructions

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

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.

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 :).

Removed ice maker bin,removed screws on back panel cover. Pulled out panel cover,thawed accumulated ice, unscrewed bracket holding defrost heater set, unplugged busted defroster, plugged in new defroster set,installed it back, installed back panel cover, ice maker and powered it on.More than a week after installation,I don't see any signs of ice accumulation on back panel cover.

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

Found a tip online that said to check the resistance of the defrost coil, when I had none I knew the coils had burned out. Before pulling the old coil out I tied on some long pieces of string as was suggested, that made things go very quick! The hardest part was reaching to the back of the narrow freezer space, but fortunately I have long arms. So far all is working well, and I have a great deal of satisfaction knowing I did the repair myself!

I got the product very quickly. (thank you) Looked at online instructions that were quite vague. Pulled plug.Removed the holder for the fan motor slid it out to see what I had. Removed the mounting screws (3) and slid the motor an fan blade out. I made a cut between the wires and marked the "top" wire to motor to be sure to spin in right direction. Removing fan blade hold down clamp was NOT explained at all but I noted that the shaft on the motor was threaded, so I used pliars and held the shaft white un-screwing clamp. I cleaned the fan blades with degreaser and scraped edges of opening on holder opening. Make sure to use ALL the NEW parts included with this kit when re-installing. They send them for a reason. When slpicing and connecting wires it is a 50/50 shot if you don't mark before cutting. You can connect and try plugging fridge back for moment and make sure it is blowing OUT. Put everything back together and after turning DOWN the thermostats twice, fridge is back to usual. Ice maker is cranking out ice and outside case is cool to the touch.

Note: This can be a DIRTY job especially with 4 dogs in house. Fir and grease don't mix well

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

Ordered the leveling bolts, very fast shipping, parts correct as shown. Purchased a condo by the shore, frige had no levelers, they went in smoothly & was done in no time.
Steve

First I removed all the screws from the back cover.
2nd removed fan nut and fan blade
3rd removed fan bracket
4th I traced wire to the condenser and disconnected wires from wire nuts.
Installed existing fan brackets to new motor kit
then reconnected wire nuts to new motor cord
Reinstalled fan nut and blade,
reinstalled cover, plugged it in and BAM .WORKS PERF!

Unplug fridge, unpluged fan motor from plug socket, removed bracket screws, removed fan retainer clip from shaft. removed screws holding fan to bracket

I removed 7 screws hold the heavy cardboard cover on the rear of the fridge. The dificult part was taking the screws that hold the 3 fan motor braces on the fan out. After that it was a matter of making the wire conections and putting it back in. I did not have enough room to laydown to do the work, If i had it would have been a lot easier to see the screws that had to be removed. All in all an easy job, and the part was a perfect fit.

removed old and instaslled new. biggest problem was getting to one of the screws.

remove all tray,remove back panel,cut out out old heater adn replace with new heatger,refitted back panel and alll tray.

Turned refrigerator and freezer controls to off, removed icemaker bin, unplugged icemaker plug and removed two screws holding icemaker in place and removed icemaker. removed screws holding auger motor and freezer compartment light plate, unplugged and set aside. Remover screws holding freezer coil cover in place and removed cover. Allowed coils to defrost completely and then removed screws that hold the two defrost heater coil mounting plates in place, unplugged the two wires that connect the defrost heater coils to the connector block that is located above the freezer coil. Remove the entire defrost heater by working the connecting wires out from along side the freezer coil. Remove the clips that hold the old defrost heater elements to the mounting plates. Install new heating elements into the two mounting plates with the clips. Reinstall the two mounting plates to brackets on freezer coil and reinstall connecting wiring up to connector block and reconnect them. Reinstall freezer coil cover, icemaker auger motor and freezer compartment light plate, and icemaker and bin to complete job. Due to the confined space in the freezer compartment, reinstalling the freezer coil cover and light plate was difficult as I could only use one arm at a time resulting in many dropped screws.