GSS22IBTW General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

After replacing the defrost heater, main board and thermistor I still had the same problem. Called a repair guy and he (with the help of GE on the phone) diagnosed that the temperature sensor was bad. So I ordered from partselect and installed it and it fixed the problem. Been good for a couple months (knocking on wood). To install I had to cut the 2 wires to the old sensor, crimp the 2 new wires on and snap the new sensor to the clip on the evaporator. Very easy. Make sure you seal the ends of the wire crimps so moisture doesn't get in and corrode the connection.

Disclaimer - if you aren't confident about doing this repair, call a repair specialist in. Also, take care not to damage the freezer coils as they have refrigerant in them that I'm told is harmful if it leaks. It may also be under pressure. The instructions that follow won't require you to touch the coils. There is no need to unplug the refrigerator or disconnect the water supply to do this repair. The screw driver you will need is a phillips (the one withe the + head).

1st, take out your frozen food (which, if you need to do this repair may not be frozen) and put it in a cooler or the refrigerator.
2nd, remove the ice cube bucket and dump the ice cubes in the cooler to help keep the frozen food cool. Turn the ice cube maker off.
3rd, remove the freezer shelves.
4th, locate the panel covering the freezer coils. It's a panel at the back of the freezer. It hides the freezer coils and protects them from damage. It's held in place by two screws located at the top left and right corners of the panel.
5th, unscrew the screws holding the panel to the refrigerator.
6th, detach the clip at the top of the panel.
7th, remove the panel. You should see the coils now. The coils will be covered in frost if the defroster heater has failed. If the coils are not covered in frost, there may be another reason for the refrigerator failing to cool.
8th, even if the coils are covered in frost, you should also inspect the defroster heater at the bottom, underneath the coils. The business end of it is a long tube running horizontally between two wires. If it's black like a badly burned out light bulb, then it's failed. If the bulb appears fine, you may have a different reason for your refrigerator and freezer frosting up. We'll assume that the defroster heater has blown out, and proceed.
9th, place a towel at the bottom of the panel space, to soak up any water that melts and runs down. There is a drain under the coils. It collects water that melts during the defrost cycle, but I'd rather mop up the water instead of relying on the drain.
10th, use hot air blowing from the hair dryer to defrost the coils. Just play the air from the hair dryer over the coils, starting at the top, and working down. The frost will quickly melt and the water will be soaked up by the towels. If you want things to go faster, you can throw hot water on the coils to melt them faster, but that produces more water to mop up, and makes a big mess. It's also dangerous to have water lying around if you then decide to use the hair dryer to continue defrosting the coils.
11th. MOST IMPORTANT. Don't use your screwdriver or any other sharp object to pick away at the frost on the coils. If you damage the coils the refrigerant could leak out. I'm told that it's dangerous stuff. Furthermore, I expect that you'd have to buy a new refrigerator if you damaged the coils.
12th, once you've defrosted the coils, locate the defroster heater and bracket assembly again. It's held in place by two screws, and has two insulated wires running into it on either side. Unscrew the screws, disconnect the wires and remove the assembly. Throw it away - there are no useful parts in it.
13th, install the new defroster heater and bracket assembly by connecting the wires to it, mounting it back into its place, and rescrewing the screws.
14th, put the panel back in place, replace the clip, and screw the panel back in place.
15th, turn the ice cube maker back on and replace the ice cube bucket and shelves. Put your food back into the freezer.
16th, use the freezer and refrigerator as normal. If the defroster heater fails again (I'm on my third one in less than six years), you'll notice frost building up on the panel at the back of the freezer before your freezer and refrigerator stops cooling. The frost build up is your signal to defrost the freezer and buy another defroster heater and bracket assembly. I don't know why this part is so weak, and don't know any fix except to keep replacing it.

I went to a GE repair center to explain my problem, the service center reccomended that I have a techinician come out o look at it. $75.00 for the visit and what ever labor and materials wuld cost.

I went on line to see if there were others having this same problem and found that there were many with the same problem.

After reading some of the ways that people found out what was wrong ...it became a matter of three components, the timer, heater or thermostat.

I tried the most common component and the less expensive one first , the thermostat switch I installed it very easily snipping two wires and attaching the news using wire nuts I used the diagram on this website to pinpoint the component and there has not been a problem since.

I removed the old temperature sensor by cutting the wires. I attached the wires of the new sensor with wire nuts and mounted it in the same bracket.

I had to remove all of the shelves.....part of the ice maker.....the rear cover over the freezer coils.....There were two wires that came from the back of the freezer that were also incorporated with the fan motor plug from the factory....This caused me to cut all of the wires from the new motor and soider them to the existing plug and shrink wrap the connections. If GE would have supplied two new ends I could have cut only those wires added the ends and inserted them into the new motor plug thus eliminating an extra hour and a soildering iron,,,,In my case not a big deal however not a project for those who have trouble with repairs using these type of tools.

First I took a beer out and opened it then took a sip. Then I went into my garage and searched for my Black and Decker power drill with a phililps head on it. Failure to locate a phillips head bit i took another sip of beer and took out one of those old fashion screw drivers. I went back into the kitchen and much to my dismay the fridge didnt fix itself. After another sip of beer I took the old slide out and took it to the outside garbage. On my way around the house my neighbor started to mock my home fix-it skills and his back yard became the new home for the broken slide. I put the new slide in, reinstalled the drawer, and filled it with beer.

1. Important: First you will need to prepare for water from melted ice. Plug the drain hole in the bottom rear of the freezer. Have plenty of rags near by. A pan or small bucket is helpful.

2. Unplug refrigerator

3. Remove (4) screws (2) w/screwdriver and (2) w/nut driver. You can remove the light cover to get it out of the way but you don't have to.

4. Remove the evaporator cover (The rear wall)

5. Melt and remove any ice build up. Remember those rags?

6. Remove (2) screws from the heater bracket

7. Remove the failed heater. My old heater was a single element. The new heater was a dual element. This made no difference.

8. Disconnect (2) wires.

9. Re-route and reconnect (2) wires. The wires were re-routed because the new heater has both wires on the same side. Not a problem.

10. Install new heater on the bracket (2) screws

11. Replace cover (4) screws

12. Power up the refrigerator

First ,I placed all the frozen food from the freezer into the lower fridge compartment. Removed the main shelf. Removed the ice cube tray shelf. Removed the center plastic covers using a nut driver. Removed the complete inside back wall of the freezer to get access to the fan. Simply removed about 5 screws, and cut 3 tie straps that held the wiring in place. Unplugged the fan connector and removed fan with its brackets and placed them on the kitchen table. Then used the nut driver to remove 2 screws which hald the fan to its bracket. Simply pulled off the fan blades and pressed them onto the new motor. Mounted new motor onto the bracket. Reinstalled the fan assembly back into freezer. Reconnected the wiring and the fan began to run... BE CAREFUL NOT TO TOUCH THE FAN WITH YOUR FINGERS!
Finally replaced all the covers, panels, and shelf etc. and everything is once again nice and cold.

1) Unplugged fridge and removed cover over light in freezer.
2)Removed screws holding cover over motor.
3) Removed screws on bracket holding motor in place.
4) Un plugged motor and used razor blade to cut grommet holding wires in place.
5) Plugged in new motor and routed wires through grommet. Then used zip ties to hold grommet together.
5) Re-attached motor bracket and installed new fan.
6) Reinstalled cover over motor.

Removed the back cover of the fridge with it still pluged in. The next time the compressor tried to kick on, a small piece of black plastic next to the black tank caught fire, and then went out. I unpluged the fridge, unpluged the two wires feeding the black box. Then the box unpluged from the tank. I searched on the internet for the part using the model #. It ended up being a overload/ptc or relay. There was a smaller black box attached with I think is some sort of an overload. I unplugged the overload and it plugged right into the new relay I had overnighted. Although the new relay was white (not black) and the plug attachments were in different locations, it work great.

went to your website and viewed exploded view to find the sensor( there are two I just picked one to replace for now), pried the cover off carfully and pulled out the sensor. I snipped the wire in the middle leaving plenty to work with. I shortened the wire on the new piece, spliced the wires together and with some 3M rubberized, tape wrapped them up, replaced the sensor back into the cover and snapped in place.

put fridge into test mode, failed One sensor. Took it out, Tested it, Ordered part also picked up splice kit from electric store spliced it truned on and good to go

I replaced the motor that runs the fan in the freezer compartment. Had to remove a number of shields to get to the fan and then some wires and screws to get at the motor. It came with a plug with 4 wires in it and I was supposed to pull 2 wires out of the old plug and place them in the new plug. Long story short the pins would not extract from the plug and the wiring harness was molded in solid plastic, so I ended up cutting the 4 wires to the motor and splicing in the new one and taping them with electrical tape. So far no more moaning and the ice cream is still hard, so I think we nailed it.

As advised by the forum just replaced the defrost heater assembly now the refrigerator works perfect. did not have to replace the thermostat.
My nephew had exactly same problem on ge refrigerator - replaced the defrost heater assembly and the problem is solved. Just remove the back panel in the freezer compartment, disconnect the cable, remove the nuts and replace the assemble. It is very simple. Bought both assembly from parts select.com - got next day delivery. they are great. would do business in future.

Took panel off back of inside of freezer section, took off old sensor from the evaporator, spliced new sensor into the existing wires, waterproofed spliced connections, snapped sensor back onto evaporator, then put panel back on the inside of the freezer. Really, it took only 10 minutes to fix. Now refrigerator defrosts like it used to, and temps have settled in at specified temps.