JS48SEDBDA Jenn-Air Refrigerator - Instructions

The easiest thing to do was pull the ice make off. After taking the 3 screws out of the wall of the freezer, take a screwdriver (flathead) and push on the tab for the electrical plug and wiggle the cord out. Then you can take 3 screws out for the main cover and another 2 screws on the next cover. There's the part, pop it out and replace holding pins and start the process of putting back together the opposite way you took it apart.

I removed the ice maker from the refrigerator, by removing one screw on the underside bracket and loosening the two screws at the top side, then lifting the ice maker off the loosened screws. I then unplugged the electrical harness that supplies power from the refrigerator to the ice maker. I then disassembled the ice maker by removing the front cover which is snapped in place, then removing two recessed screws at the front. I removed the broken part, I then reassembled the ice maker with the new part. I replaced the two recessed screws at the front and snapped on the cover. Then I reinstalled the ice maker in the refrigator by plugging in the harness, slipping the ice maker over the loosened screws in the refrigerator and replacing the screw that was removed from the underside bracket. Tightening all the screws completed the project.

Turn counter clockwise, following the remove arrow on the filter, until it stops. Wiggle and pull down on the filter until it comes off. Put date sticker on new filter to remember when it was replaced. Align the lines on the filter and push it up where the old one was and turn it clockwise until it stops, following the install arrow. Close the door and push both the light and lock button together to reset the replace filter light. Run the water through the door for a couple minutes to get all of the air out of the system. Very easy and quick. Most time spent flushing out the air.

The ice maker was not getting water. I hotwired the water valve by switching the connectors for the water dispenser and ice maker water valves and water flowed into the icemaker when the water dispenser lever was pushed. I wronly assumed the water valve was good. I removed the icemaker and determined that the gear motor was not getting power in the position the icemaker had stopped.In this position, the thermostat determines when the motor gets power so I replaced the thermostat. The icemaker still would not get water! As it turns out, the water solenoid was sticking due to a deteriorated rubber washer which let the solenoid plunger get too far out of the magnetic field. I replaced the water solenoid assy and all is well. Don't get fooled by hotwiring the valve. If it isn't getting water, the solenoid probably is the culprit.

The tiny piece of plastic that holds the wire that shuts off the icemaker, broke early on with our fridge (after just a few months.) We superglued it, but last week it bit the dust for good.

Once I got this part, I removed the freezer door and trays, and pulled the icemaker out by removing 3 flathead screws and unplugging the cables. Laying in the freezer on the floor was a bit unconfortable, but not too bad.

Then I inspected the icemaker. There was no obvious way to remove the part without disassembling the front of the unit (where the motor is) to release the spindle and free the part, so I did that - 3 or 4 nuts was all that held it together. Once that was out, I removed the spindle, swapped out the part, and put it all back together and back in the freezer. Plugged it in and waited.

It took a while to start making ice. Like 5 hours. Now it's going pretty slow (much slower than before.) Haven't had time to look into it, but my suspicion is the rubber hose that feeds water into the icemaker is blocked with ice or kinked. In any case, we have ice now (but not a lot), and the unit shuts itself off properly. However, we went from having too much ice (thing never shut off) to too little (thing makes ice too slow), so I need to shoot for somewhere in the middle ;)

First I removed the cardboard cover, which was held in place by 7 screws. Actually first I unplugged the fridge, next using a nut driver I removed the 3 screws holding the supports to the motor. The motor with fan just pulls right out. Next was to disconnect the wire harness or plug, which required squeezing together the plastic plug and moving it side to side while gently pulling.
With motor in hand using a pair of pliers remove the poor excuse for a nut of the fan motor shaft holding on the fan. Slide the fan off the shaft -note direction of blades!!!! Using a nut driver remove 2 srews holding on the plastic motor support . This slides right off the back. To assemble follow the reverse . Just check to see that the fan spins freely before plugging back in your fridge.

We have a Reverse Osmosis water filter supplying the fridge, so the internal water filter only served to reduce the water pressure inside the unit. I installed the bypass plug by simply twisting and removing the internal water filter and then twisting the plug up into the same hole. Done in 5 min.
Longest part of this was clearing the top shelf to reach back there... Oh, and figuring out that this part exists and that it could help with the problems we were having with the unit. The water filter is relatively new, less than six months, but it still contributed to the problem enough to cause the failure.
[Thank you Partselect.com for having this web database set up that gets EXACTLY the right part!].

Now about the hollow cubes: Do a web search and you'll find a lot of discussion about it. This is specific to the Whirlpool (Maytag, and others) newer style front to back icemakers that create "half moon" shaped icecubes. For a Shop Manual to a web search for 4316835.pdf for this series.
No doubt my old unit's icemaker solenoid valve on the back isn't passing as much pressure as it did new, but by itself it isn't fatal just yet. You can tell if you are vulnerable to this if the water spigot on the front only delivers a very slow trickle of water; if it takes a l o n g t i m e to fill a glass.

But here is the rest of the story: There is a fundamental design flaw in the way the icemaker unit was created that makes it malfuntion if the water pressure is too low - they chose to put the thermocouple (TC) that senses the temperature of the freezing cube on the opposite end (front) of the water tray from the water fill tube which fills from the rear. This was probably a manufacturing trade off for simplicity of assembly and it saved them half a cent's worth of copper wiring and a couple of screws. And maybe a safty concern about wiring under an open water channel, but that is a lousy excuse; there are other solutions, and the power "harness" goes right by there within a couple of inches anyway...

There are a number of reasons for low pressure:
- Bad supply inlet valve, or not open all the way, crimped tubing
- Bad Frige icemaker solenoid valve
- Clogged internal water filter (even just a little)
- Frozen ice plug in the fill tube, in the very back top of the unit against the back (use a hair dryer to defrost)
- Etc. Do some more web research for more details.
Of course the icemaker timers do fail as well, so this discussion assumes the icemaker is still functioning as "normally" as it can, given its design limitations.

The interaction with water pressure (design flaw!) is this: if the unit doesn't get enough water due to low pressure, then the final cube position to fill doesn't get any water in it (the front one by the motor). This is the one that the TC is next to as well, so it cools of really quickly and the TC thinks the tray is completely frozen, when in fact it isn't. The TC fires the cycling motor which turns on the heater and then spins the ejector shaft which has tabs that push the half moon shaped cubes around and out. However, since the cubes weren't fully frozen, only their outer shell gets pushed out - the water in the middle drains out leaving a hollow cube set. That liquid water hits the cold ejector bars and some of it immediately freezes, making little stalactite fingers that catch on the tabs and side of the tray, thus jamming the ejector shaft and pausing the cycle in place indefinitely.
The net is that you get a few hollow cubes and then no more ice until you reach in and crack off the ice fingers so shaft tabs can pass and the motor can finsh the cycle and properly stop in its home position. You can also tell by checking whether the front cube location has water in it just after it fills by reaching around and dipping your finger in it. If it comes up dry, then you have this problem.
So, in my case, putting the bypass plug in increased my flow t

Several days back I found I couldn't get any ice from the ice maker. I was able to hear noise from the ice maker but no ice would dispense. I opened the freezer and removed the ice bucket to find out that the Auger has broken off from it's plastic housing in the back of the freezer. I went to partselect.com to find the part(s) that were broken, it was much easier because of the diagram/images they have for each individual section of the fridge. Parts came quickly and as expected.

The replacement of the auger motor is very easy if you follow these steps:

1 - Remove the ice bucket from the freezer
2 - Unscrew the one screw on the bottom left side of the ice bucket tray (the tray holds the ice bucket in place). I used a small needle nose plier to remove this screw as I was having a hard time with my drill or wrench set. After you've removed the one small screw, lift the tray up and slowly pull towards you.
4 - You'll quickly see that the auger motor and magnetically controlled yoke are connected with a wire harness to the back of the freezer.
5 - Gently crimp the ends of the wiring harness connector with your hand and slowly pry away from the freezer. Once you've removed the wiring harness you can remove the entire tray with the parts attached (yoke/auger)
6 - Unscrew the auger motor from the tray. You'll also have to remove the auger from the motor else it won't come out. In my case the whole plastic attachment was broken so I didn't have to do this (ie I replaced the ice tray as well). It was impossible for me to remove the auger from the auger motor, not sure why the auger was so tightly attached to the motor - it could be the reason the auger motor broke from the ice tray?, so I had to buy a brand new auger motor and auger (ie Auger Drive Motor Kit). I hope you have more luck then I did removing the auger. If you can't remove it you'll need to buy the Drive Motor Kit (which comes with the drive motor, detached auger and auger washer).
7 - Once/if you've removed the auger from the motor and remove the motor from the ice tray, you can proceed with the replacement of motor.
8 - Using needle nose pliers remove the three power connections on the motor (white/neutral?, pink/power?, green/ground, note where the connections were when you removed them because you'll replace them in the same place on the new motor).
9 - Attach new motor to ice tray with the four screws, attach the auger and auger washer to the auger motor, attach the power connections back (white, pink, green).
10 - Re-connect the wire harness to the back of the freezer
11 - Move ice tray back into place, and attach the one screw back to the ice tray to hold it in place.
12 - Replace the ice bucket back onto the ice tray
13 - Done, you should now get ice!

Good luck, I hope this helps. It's easy and you don't have to pay three times this price to replace these ice bucket parts.

I unplugged the fridge. Loosened the 2 top screws on the ice maker and removed the lower screw. I disconnected the wiring harness and removed the Ice maker. I removed the plastic timer cover in front. I then loosened the screws on the face of the ice maker and removed the broken ice stripper and replaced it with a new one. Re-tightened the screws on the face, installed the timer cover, plugged in the wiring harness, re-attached the ice maker. Plugged the fridge back in and walla, it was making ice in 30 minutes!

I called the local Amana repair man, wanted $150 for a new ice maker because they could not get the part I needed. Found Partsselect.com and the part cost $17 with shipping. They saved me over $100. The repair was very easy too, just removed a couple of screws.

Thanks,
Matt

From the beginning I have never had good water flow in the door and ice cubes turned out funky. I tried replacing the filter once with hardly noticeable change. The change I did see was $35 less in my pocket. So I bought a filter bypass plug and it now works like a champ. I have well water so I trust its quality and I am very satisfied. I would describe how I did the repair but if you don't no how to change out the filter you probably shouldn't be trying it.

took cover off, installed bulb.
lost the owners manual,
part select's schematics were very helpful
thanks

Confirmed the condenser fan was the problem when I noted it was not running when the compressor was on. Removed 3 mounting screws, unpluggede the fan. Removed and replaced the mounted flange(3 screws) and remounted. Plugged in fan and it started running.

Thanks for the diagrams and quick delivery. This is the second repair on appliances I have made with your parts and probably saved $300-400 in service calls.

Removed the ice bucket from the freezer. Removed the single screw on the left side with a nut driver, then lift and pull the tray toward you...there is a wiring harness in back of the tray that I had to unplug...easy, pinch the sides of the plastic connector and it disconnects..and the tray came out of the refrigerator...and the cussing started. Since the threaded yoke was stripped it could not be unscrewed from the motor shaft...I took my trusty Dremel Tool and cut the shaft off so the yoke could be separated from the motor shaft and the motor could be removed from the plastic housing. From here on it was a piece of cake...install the new motor and screw the new yoke onto the motor shaft... I think it has a left handed thread, like the old propane bottles used to have..slide the tray back in, reconnect the wiring harness (it only plugs in one way), make sure the tray is sitting on the 4 side supports, put the single screw on the left side and you are done....put the ice bucket back in and flip the bail down and you should be back on business....!!

I don't know anything about repairing a refrigerator - I'm a computer tech. I noticed that the outside of the fridge was warm to the touch and the inside was not getting as cold as it should. I took the lower back panel behind the fridge off and noticed that the fan was not spinning. The local parts dealers did not have the condenser fan motor that was needed but they did say that they do go bad. I decided to order one from PartSelect.com and do it myself. Using a 1/4 inch nut driver and a flat head screw driver to pry the old motor out of the casing, I got the job done in about an hour or so. It's a relativly easy job. Besides the ouside panel screws, there's 3 screws on the inside near the fan blades you have to reach in to get. Pop out the whole assembly, unscrew the nut that holds the blades on and pry out the old motor and replace.. Try it yourself and save a couple hundred bucks!