ESS22XGMCBB General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

Removed the front panel on the door that has the ice maker controls. Removed the screws and parts. Reassembled the parts and it works better than new. Ice door closes firmly and holds tight.

just unscrewed the 3 screws, attached the rounded plug that came with the unit and screwed back only 2 screws. ice magic in about a couple of hours

First, I removed all the shelves and the light guard. Second, I removed the nuts that held the fan guard and the freezer back in place (2 just under the fan guard and removed the freezer back. Third, lifted fan guard out of way (being very careful not to crack it..... cold plastic). Fourth, unpugged fan from pug then removed nuts that held fan bracket in place...removed fan. fifth, then removed fan blade and remove fan motor from bracket, removed two wires that went to freezer light (pay attention to where they go) and installed them into the new wireing harness. Sixth, installed fan blade on new motor, bolted new assembly in fan bracket, plugged in and reistalled fan into the freezer, replaced fan guard and freezer back (reverse order of above) and then replaced freezer racks. works beautiful.

Pull plastic trim piece off refridgerator door,unclip printed circuit board and remove wires unscrew dispenser housing,and remove. Transfer Ice funnel to new dispenser housing with old spring. Reinstall dispenser housing and printed circuit board.

removed ice tray, removed drive unit. removed solenoid and replaced, screwed on auger drive. reinstalled drive assembly. replaced ice tray. job done.

My husband did the repair, and even though our refrigerator is roughly 20+ years old, he was able to adapt it to work in all the right spots and we now have ice cubes! I'm very happy we did not have to spend $2000 on a comparable refrigerator.

I had taken the noise long enough and wanted to get this repaired. I didn't want to pay a repair man hundreds of dollars to do it so i decided to do it myself. I went on to YouTube and found a few videos that showed me how easy it was to do (very helpful).

I wasn't so sure all that noise would come from the Evaporator Fan motor so i ordered it and took the chance. For the small cost, it was worth the try.

All went well accessing the unit and removing the old part. Very fast indeed. However, the snag came when i went to plug in the new part electrical to the existing electrical adapters. The old part had 4 lead connections. The new part had 6. and the wires on the new part were different colors than the existing. I had to use some logic and courage to cut the wires on the new part and rewire the old adapter to this piece. Luckily, i wired everything correctly.

Calling Part Select got me a phone number for the parts manufacturer to help with the splicing but i opted to do it on my own.

The result is i have a noiseless refrigerator again. What should have taken 10 to 15 minutes took half an hour because of the wiring but overall, very easy.

My refrigerator's initial problem was as follows:

1. Freezer fan stopped circulating the cooled air. Causing food to thaw at the top of the freezer, and freeze solid at the bottom. Ice in the icemaker thawed.

2. Water dripped from the freezer door gasket when the freezer was in defrost mode & water dispenser would not dispense water.

--FIX (the easy one first..):
2. I removed the inner freezer door panel and found ice filling every void of the freezer door panel-approx 5 lbs of ice dammed in the panel. I thawed the insulation and removed the ice. Also there is a styrofoam insulating surround around the inside of the dispenser panel. The styrofoam had become saturated with water and was freezing, allowing the drinking water tube to freeze, not allowing the refrigerator to dispense water...
THE CAUSE:
2. Overflowing of water from the in-door ice/water dispenser compartment reservoir (just under the grill where your glass sits, when it's dispensing water) was draining into the freezer door panel.
PREVENTION:
2. Check the reservoir more frequently to make sure water does not build up and overflow into the door.

FIX (now the trickier one..)
1. I initially thought it was the main circuit board. I replaced the board. Access is by removing the 3 hex nut screws holding door in place at the rear of the freezer. Disconnect connectors & using a needle nose pliers, squeezed the plastic catches that hold the board in place. Connect the new board (being careful not to touch the components or traces on the board) to the connectors, then snap into place using the white plastic catches.
Close everything up.

NOTE: This may, may not have contributed to the problem, but my refrigerator light went out. I replaced it with a small flouresent bulb. That bulb did not last, and became inop. Shortly afterward, the freezer started malfunctioning. I replaced the board, and the freezer was still somewhat intermittent. I replaced the bulb with an appliance 60 watt. The freezer has been perfect since...

Note: I first ordered the main circuit board, when that didn't immediately fix the problem, I ordered the above parts. I did not need the parts and am returning them. The web page is forcing me to select at least one of the parts needed for the repair, when I used neither.

While the switch did last for 9 years, the design is poor due to the failure mode. The failure should be to fail off or not able to turn on the lights which would be inconvenient but would not warm the refrigerator contents. Arcing at the contacts eventually caused the switch to "weld" closed. It is not obvious that this is occurring so it took some time to recognize why the temp inside the ref was high while the freezer was OK. Replacing the switch was easy once it was recognized as the problem. All that was required to replace the switch was to remove the screws holding a fiber cover and then pulling off the aluminum cap which covered the switches. Unplug the switch an squeeze the keeper on the switch to release it and pull down. Pop the replacement switch in place and plug the wires harness back in. All in all it took much less time to replace than it has to write this up. T Pope

First my wife and i took the panel off the back, unscrewed the old mainboard, unplugged all the switches from it and prayed that the new one would work. We were without a fridge for 2 weeks beginning 2 days before Christmas!!!!! Gingerly, we put the new board in place, screwed it into the fridge, connected the switches, attached the ground wire, and held our breath as we plugged it back in. Within seconds, the familiar sound of water filling the icemaker was hear and there were cheers all around!!!

Checked the internet for reports of similar problems and concluded that it was probably the main control board. Not being particularly handy, I would never have attempted to change the board myself if I had not read the comments and instructions from people on this site. Thanks.

The job was as straight forward as others have described. The only time I had a problem was pushing in the white tab to be able to pull the old board out. That was a bit of a fiddle.

The only thing I found different was the grounding wire. On the original board, this wire was at the bottom of the board and hooked into a wire that ran into the refrigerator. On the new board, the wire was at the top of the board and had a metal loop on it. If I understand it correctly, with the new grounding system the wire is pushed into the space above the board. Then when the back plate is reattached the metal loop makes contact with it , thus grounding the refrigerator.
I chose to run the grounding wire through the original wire into the refrigerator. That meant cutting off the metal loop, slicing in an extra piece of wire to connect the grounding wire on the board to the grounding wire into the refrigerator.

I also now use a surge suppressor for the refrigerator. The “Moaning Myrtle” syndrome started after Hurricane Ike. I suspect the surge when the power was restored damaged the control board. And as so many people seem to have this “Moaning Myrtle” problem, I suspect the control board has little or no surge protection.

Unplugged the appliance for safety. Removed two 1/4" screws that held the assembly in place. Carefully removed the wire guard that retains the glass shield. Unscrewed old light bulb and replaced with new part. Reversed the steps after cleaning glass cover.

First I replaced the double valve because the ice maker was not filling with water. It still did not work. Then I replaced the ice maker itself. This worked and was relatively easy to replace. I had to use the water fill "slide" from the old ice maker. The new one was too narrow and it leaked water into the freezer.

Pulled old assembly out, emptied ice, installed new assembly, filled with the ice already made. Less than 1 minute.
Worked like new for a week. Now, auger won't turn. Have no idea what the problem is, but I'm assuming it's the motor that turns the ice bucket auger, because the auger turns by hand. The bucket ass'y. was in need of replacement, but now I'm wondering if it was worth the money because of this new problem.

The existing light switch was very hard to remove. I ended up having to grab it with a pair of pliers and pull it out. Once it was out, it was very easy to put in the replacement and it seems to be working fine.