CFE28TSHESS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

followed part select video instructions

What an awesome site! After putting in my model number and finding the problem I was having, I simply picked the 2 parts that were most likely to solve the problem. I bought a defrost thermostat, and defrost heater. To a high certainty, they would solve my problem. They didn't however! I ended up having to buy a temperature sensor on another order a few weeks later when the problem resurfaced! My own fault. I should have bought it the first time. As others have written: the longest part of the job is defrosting the ice from the coil. One thing I did that I didn't see suggested: plug the drain hole below the coil. I put a couple towels in the bottom of the freezer and ran the hair dryer. Didn't take long. I read that the amount of water created will overflow the pan under the refrigerator, so I plugged the drain hole. Once you clean that mess up, the repair is pretty straight forward. Great site. Even through I had to make two separate purchases, I still saved a lot of money. Thanks!

First, I had to remove the freezer drawer front. This is 8 large phillips head screws. then remove the plastic cover over the drawer slides. to do this, remove the white center screw from the slide near where it attaches to the drawer front. then the plastic cover will slide off pushing to the rear of the slide. take off the slides from the freezer walls by removing the phillips screws and pulling them towards you. They have tabs/slots in the rear. remove the center tray support and support bars, too. the icemaker has to come out, that is just 2 phillips screws but you also have to disconnect the electrical connector. just squeeze the locking wings and rock/pull. a screw in the top center of the back panel comes out. Lift and pull the back panel out. The evaporator coil appears. The thermocouple is attached to the coil in the upper right. Cut that one's wires and take it out. Just cut back about an inch from the back of the thermocouple, there is not much slack. Seperate and strip the wires back about 3/8 inch. Do the same for the new thermocouple. I twisted the wires together and used a solder sleeve to join the wires. The sleeve is just a little plastic tube that has a ring of solder in it that melts with heat gun heat. You can join the wires using butt connectors or whatever method appeals to you. I just wound the extra wire and put a cable tie around it, there is plenty of hiding space in that area. Make sure the new thermocouple is contacting the coil firmly.At this point, for a test, I left everything apart, propped the drawer against the opening and plugged the fridge in. Note that the evaporator fan will not start spinning immediately! It will just sit there making little bumps like it wants to go. The temp in the coil has to get settled before the electronics in the refridge will tell the fan to spin. It takes maybe 20 minutes. Reassemble. Fridge and freezer work great. It does take several hours for all to get cold again.

I ordered 3 temperature Sensors Part#PS304103 and viewed the video. Got there, opened the frig. and it looked totally different and no place in any part of this frig. that took these sensors as viewed on the video. Totally baffled why these parts were listed for this frig. there was no place in this frig that would access for these parts. Serial # was HR443071.Maybe this model is out of date for these parts. Trying to find someone who can repair it. Any ideas???Purchased this GE in 2008. Model #is GSS25WSTFSS Thanks, for your help. JIM

My brother-in-law is a 15 year refrigeration technician who I called and described the problem to. He told me to put an "amp clamp" on the line side of the wires (black) that go to the starting controls on the side of the compressor. The motor has a label that has a number on it (LRA) that he used to determine the max amps it would pull. In this case, if the motor pulled 10 amps, then the motor was bad and I'd have to buy a new refrigerator. It was pulling less then 9 amps so he thought to buy a new overload, since the capacitor checked out (measured by multi-meter). As soon as the part came, I removed the back panel (4 screws removed by nut driver), removed the clip that holds the overload/capacitor assembly, detached the two wires from it, and removed the capacitor from the overload. I swapped in the new overload and repeated the above process in reverse. The only difficulty was that the new part was different in that the plug-in locations for the two wires were in different locations, and not marked. I had to disassemble the old part to figure out how it worked so I could deduce how the new one plugged in. Once that was solved, it was a quick fix. This was not a repair that just anyone could do; it required someone with a lot of experience to help me, and I am an engineer.

Replaced all the sensors in both the feezer and refrigerator.Even though it colder now it still is not cold enough.Freezer won't freeze items but is cold and refrigerator still not real cold

Had to remove all the covers and fans to expose the condenser, which was difficult as the parts were frozen to it. The styrofoam covering the condenser made it almost impossible to defrost it. Therefore, I ripped the styrofoam off to expose the condenser. Was not really difficult to fix the styrofoam cover using metal tape. Replaced temperature sensor in aluminum block, and used butyl sealant to secure. Had to also re-install parts of ice-ball kit that were not well covered. Lots of parts to keep track of, but anyone could do it.