JSD2789GES Jenn-Air Refrigerator - Instructions

First of all, let me say that I'm a 50 year old single woman. If I can do this repair, anyone can! After unscrewing the back of the unit that houses the compressor, I found the relay overload switch which is attached to the compressor. I pulled the part off and discovered that it comes in one piece. The replacement part came in 3 pieces. I intially thought they sent the wrong part. After a little thinking outside of the box, I figured out that the replacement part was indeed the correct part and that it comes in 3 pieces instead of one. It would have taken 5 minutes to repair if I had realized this early on. Once replaced, the refrigerator/freezer was cooling within 10 min. I sent the Run Capacitor back after telephoning a customer service rep. She was so courteous and helpful! What a fabulous company. I highly recommend. I saved myself approx. $250.00 doing it myself.

First I removed the 14.3 tons of freezer contents, closed the water valve, shut off the juice, and removed the freezer bins, the freezer door and the three screws that held the element in place. After bringing in 397 hand tools from my garage inventory, I loosened the unit and, after extensive evaluation, I finally disconnected the wiring connector from its freezer rear wall connector counterpart. You ain't gonna believe the rest of my story--of total ineptitude by an experienced fix-it-yourself dummy.

I searched the internet for a replacement ice maker and found it at partselect.com. I called Sears to ask if I could add my refrigerator to my existing appliance repair account. Sears said sure--it would cost me only one arm, three toes and one grandchild. I abruptly declined their magnanimous offer—I don’t give up my arms and toes so easily.

I visited the local Maytag repair parts and service retailer, who advised they didn't do parts anymore. Expecting their repair price would be greater than Sears, I resorted to partselect.com. I called them to be assured what I was buying was not mistakenly a 747 Landing Gear. On the afternoon (West Coast) of 4/28/10, I ordered (via internet) one PS21215123 Ice Maker Assy. Much to my pleasant surprise, it arrived via FedEX on 4/30/10 (no freight charges to me).

My repair/replacement efforts were hampered by the effects of my right rotator cuff surgery a few months before and major left wrist surgery two months ago to remove fractured bones and torn ligaments.

Undaunted by my physical handicaps, I forged forward. After re-installing the unit, I turned the water supply and electricity back on. It was graveyard dead. I wisely then bought two bags of ice as an interim solution to the severe needs of my wife and me for our daily chilled evening cocktails. I removed the unit, checked it out and re-installed it. I bought two more bags of ice. All the while, I turned the water and electricity off and on as required by reasonable safety standards. High tediousness!

Several more home maintenance tasks then arose for Sergeant Super Fixer, but I returned to the ice maker problem on 4/8/10. Last chance--remove the device and insure there was no frozen ice in the inlet tube--or call the local partsless repairman. No ice found, but I did learn the wiring connector to the unit was awry--no contact! While explaining that to my wife, I realized the two upper mounting screws were intended to be partially installed into the freezer wall to accommodate the unit's slotted mounting holes! Then, tighten the screws. Oh my God! During my 143 installations and removals, I had installed those screws blindly--using the (handicapped) skills of my right and left hands without any benefit of direct eyesight.

I returned to my challenging project this morning (4/9/10), fully utilizing all the expertise I had gained yesterday. Fifteen minutes of amusing effort! Turn on the juice! Turn on the water!Two hours later, ice cubes were dropping into the bin like rhinoceros bisquits in the jungle.

Hallelujah! I now am free for the next challenge!

HINT: Put a bed pillow (an old one, or your wife's) in the freezer compartment to soften the harshness of its cold metal on your back, if you use the "crawl in on your back" approach.

I used a flat screwdriver and released the lock tab on the bottom of the light switch, and pried the switch out, being careful to not damage the plastic around the mounting place of the switch, unplugged wiring from old switch, plugged in the new one and pushed the new switch into place. Job finished light switch now working.

Perhaps a helpful hint:

When aI received the hose adapter/connector, I inserted the 2 hose ends only to have water drip from the connection.
I used a utility knife to remove an inch from each side, then reinserted the hoses. That made the differnce. Dry as a bone.

LG

Through experience I determined the problem was with the compressor trip switch. It's the small white piece that looks like a flat fuse.

The parts arrived in 3 working days. Instructions were included - very easy to understand. From start to finish I replaced the switch in about 15 minutes. Frig is now working perfectly.

3 pieces come along in the kit - however, all I needed was the switch, but for the price I changed out all three to assure compatibilty.

I also ordered the cover which was not needed.

A Happy Customer! {:-)

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 ;)

Quiet a simple repair. First I removed the ice maker bin and the plastic side panel on the right hand side. From there, I was able to remove the ICE ENCLOSURE . It unhooks. Next I removed the ICE DESPENSOR ENGAGEMENT YOKE. It has reverse threads so be careful. Next I removed the ICE AUGER MOTOR. Its located at the back of the ICE ENCLOSURE and held in place by 4 phillips screws. You also need to remove the SOLENOID YOKE ASSEMBLY which is located just to the left of the ICE AUGER MOTOR. It unscrews with 2 phillips screws. Next I reassembled the ICE AUGER MOTOR and SOLENOID YOKE ASSEMBLY to the new ICE ENCLOSURE. Then I reinstalled the ENGAGEMENT YOKE and snapped the unit back in place.

After removing all shelves, I removed the 2 screws holding the 2 panels in front of the evaporator and heater. The heater is located at the bottom of the evaporator coils and is held on by a simple wire clip. After removing the heater and thermostat, is very easy to replace the new unit and reconnect the wire harness.

removed all 6 screws in back of fridge. located the condenser the relay was a white like circut to the left of the unit. The entire pience comes off easy using a flat screw driver to pry it off the pins.
The replacement came in 2 pieces insted of 1.
I replaced the relay and then the overload reconnected the wire harness back the way it was before. The new relay has a larger connector prong for the live wire so the kit comes with a jumper wire so the original wire harness can be used without splitting the cabel made the repair very easy. Also the new capacitor is bigger and better so I replaced that as well. The capacitor makes sure the relay gets stable current so its good to have a working one.

I first dropped the Cover Assy, which covers lites and controls, this was done by pulling it forward and it drops down, did not remove top shelf so It was a bit difficult to tilt cover assy. for removal. There is a srew located close to filter assy. in back use nut driver 1/4"located to remove this screw, there are then 2 screws located to the rear and side of light holders, both phillips head, the one on the left side is a bit tricky to remove but I use a thin bladed scredriver, Next there are 2 screws located on both ends od the slides that control temp, both again removed witn1/4 " nut driver, the whole upper assy drops down and forward the Adeptive Defrost assy is located in the back right corner of this assy, unplug the wires and unit snaps out, I foud it easier to pop off top cover of new unit so I could see connector assy when I reattached the wires, then replaced the top assy and snapped new unit it place, Reassymbly was reverse of removal, before placing cover assy back in place I replaced both lamps as 1 was out .

First I removed the screws from the front of the ice bin which freed up the drive mechanism. I then removed the drice ring and replaced it with the part from Parts Select and then replaced the screws on the front. A very simple procedure.
The chill department door was an easy snap in replacement..

I would like to add that I was very pleased with Parts Select. Locating the parts I needed was very easy and I received them the next day. When The door first broke I was told I would have to replace
the whole assembly which I was not willing to do
at a quoted price of about $350.00. Needless to say I was very happy to locate Parts Select and was very pleased with everything. I have since told family and friends about Parts Select.

First I removed the Ice bin, I then loosened the ice bin rail under the ice maker and removed the screw that attached the bottom of the ice maker to the side of the fridge. I unplugged the power to Ice Maker from the back of the fridge and unscreewed the two screws that secured the ice maker to the fridge. This allowed the Ice Maker to be removed from the fridge. To replace the new ice maker I simply repeated the steps in reverse.

The adaptive defrost assembly is located in the refrig compartment. This requires removing the panel which covers the temp controls and interior lighting. In the back right hand corner is the adaptive defrost circuit board. It has a six wire connector and is retained by two screws.

Remove the two screws and grip the connector making sure to disengage the locking tab with holds the connector in place.

Replace with the new assembly by plugging in the connector, replacing the two screws and then reinstalling the compartment cover.

Set the temperature lower than you normally would temporarily to make sure that the system is working properly (takes 30 - 45 minutes).

Once the unit begins to cool again, you can gradually readjust the temperature to it normal range in both the freezer and refrig compartments.

I used a flashlight and a mirror to check the coil in the freezer compartment for a couple of days to make sure that the defrost function was working correctly by looking up into the louvers and observing if there was any ice accumulation.

Easy repair and Partselect provided great on-line information. Also, I probably saved a bundle.

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