KBRS22KKBT00 KitchenAid Refrigerator - Instructions

I noticed the the freezer was beginning to thaw out and the refrigerator was no longer cooling. Due to the age of the refrigerator I thought that it couldn't be anything too major so I sought out some advice and order the necessary parts through partselect.com The problem was the thermostat in the freezer and changing out was pretty simple. The website offers some good advice along with quick delivery which makes attempting the repairs worthwhile. I would definitely use partselect.com again for any other appliance repairs!

After the backordered gasket arrived, I took it out of the box and placed it over the back of a kitchen chair and used the hair dryer to get the shipping kinks out of the gasket. After unloading the door of the Freezer compartment, I made a temporary door from a piece of styrofoam board. After removing all of the screws holding the gasket and inner panel to the door, I removed the inner panel and took it outside to melt the ice acumulated on the back and to install the new gasket. I removed the old gasket, and installed the new one over the edges of the panel carefully to avoid tearing the gasket and make sure it was evenly laid out on the panel. This installation went easily because I took the time to see how the old gasket was on the door before I removed it.
I then scewed the panel with the new gasket to the door of the freezer. Once back on the refridgerator, I used the hair dryer and a dull putty knife to get the edge of the gasket pressing firmly against the refridgerator frame. This last step was critical, because the gasket was distorted by the packing and storage of the gasket in the shipping box. I was not satisfied with the amount of magnetic pull from the new gasket and used Vasaline Jelly to create a better seal with the refridgerator.

Other stories I've read here speak to difficulty of changing a gasket with the door on the appliance. Whoa! Take the door off, tape cardboard over the opening, lay the door on its back and proceed. You will avoid racking or twisting the door and having the new gasket fit worse than the old. You can also thaw ice which often forms inside a door over time. Reinstall the door taking pains to shim properly so the new gasket is not overcompressed or allowing a gap. A dollar bill is a good gauge. It should resist a bit as it is pulled out after closing the door on it. This was not exactly step-by-step, just offered as advice from a whole bunch of experience.

This is a bottom freezer refrigerator. First I unplugged the refrigerator. I then removed the wire shelf and wire tray from the freezer. I then removed the ice maker be removing the three screws that hold it in place. I then disconnected the icemaker electrical connector. I then removed the 7 screws that hold the panel at the back of the freezer revealing the evaporator and heat exchanger. I then unclipped the icemaker wiring harness from the panel. The whole evaporator/heat exchanger was buried in ice. I defrosted it with a hairdryer. This took about half an hour. The bi-metal thermostat is attached to the heat exchanger by a clip. Be sure to wear latex gloves to prevent cutting your fingers on the aluminum fins. I disconnected the electrical connectors and then carefully unclipped the thermostat. I discovered that the new thermostat had spade connectors where as the original had one spade connector and a bullet connector on the brown wire. I reused the original bullet connector by cutting it off the old thermostat and splicing it onto the new thermostat. I reversed the process for reassembly. There is no longer any ice build up and the refrigerator is working normally.

Once I saw the replacement part I understood how to pry out the switch with a small screwdriver. Then just unplug the old one, plug in the new one and pop it into place.

The PartSelect site made it easy to correctly identify the correct part, it was inexpensive, and the shipping was fast.

I'm very pleased!

unplug Ref. and on back of Ref., take back panel off to locate compressor. Attached to the compressor are 2 small parts, secured to the Ref. w/ a small clip. Remove the clip w/ a pair of plyers. Remove the Capacitor (white plastic electric part)form the Compressor - the black overload relay will come off with it. Plug the new relay in to the Capactor. Locate the two wires (used to connect the Ref. to the Capacitor) from the Ref, unplug them from the old Capacitor/Relay and plug them in to the new part(s). Plug the new parts back in to the Compressor. Reinstall the the small metal clip that holds the Capacitor/Relay in place. Plug Ref. back in - if no noise, parts have worked (allow 5+ mintues to test).

My husband replaced the condenser fan. It took awhile and a few choice words but he got it replaced. The fan seemed to work fine, but it still wasn't cooling. I noticed that when we had the fridge unplugged that water started draining out the dials at the top of the fridge under the freezer. And there was absolutely no water at all in the drip pan under the fridge. So I took the doors off and totally took the inside of the freezer apart. I discovered that the styrofoam on the floor of the freezer had become inudated with fluid and the under the foam the coils were all frozen solid with ice. Hence not allowing any drainage. I put a lamp in the freezer area and defrosted all the ice. In searching the internet i discovered that they no longer produce the foam so i went to home depot and got a piece of foam and aluminum foil and cut it to replace the ruined foam. I put the fridge all back together said a prayer and crossed my fingers and lo and behold it works perfectly now!!!!

Remove the back hardboard cover screws for access to the condenser fan. I opted to tip the fridge over on its side for even better access to the fan mounts and wire. Replaced the fan assy (reused the fan). Splice the wire and it's done.

I saw on a partselect web site that these symptoms could be caused by a failed condensor fan motor. After removing the cardboard panel in back of the refrigerator I noticed the fan was not running when the rfigerator was. The fan was held in place by three brackets. I unscrewed the screws holding the fan motor to the brackets and also unscrewed one of the brackets to make room to pull the motor out. I cut the wires close to the motor. I removed the fan blade and secured it to the new motor. I had to reroute the old wires in order to have enough slack to use wire nuts to attach them to the leads on the new motor. I then re-attached the motor to the two brackets remaining in place and then re-attacehed the third bracket I had removed to get the motor out.. The most difficult part was working in a very confined space.

The ordering was easy, however the installing was very difficult. Screws all around door had to not only be loosened but most had to be removed in order to get gasket behind the lip. We (my 17 yr old daughter and I )unscrewed the top and half way down the the sides and did half and half. The job took us approx 4 hrs. In all fairness neither one of us has every done anything like this and we were very proud of ourselves for accomplishing the task. When the gasket was in place we used the blow drying to smooth the gasket. Probably not anything I would attempt again because of the time committment, however, I was trying to save some money.

Someone suggested removing the door, however, I couldn't figure out how to do that. On the up side, it did give me the confidence to replace a screen door myself. You tube helped me with that. ( I couldn't find a "how to" on how to install this gasket at least not for this type of appliance.

After moving the refrigerator away from the wall I removed the cover on the lower back of the unit by removing the screws that held it in place. The condenser fan was not turning and there was heat build up in the area causing the refrigerator to not work properly creating elevated temperatures in both the freezer and regrigerator. Removal of three torx screws from the original motor was all it took to get the motor free. By turining it and working the fan blade around the mounting bracket I had the motor out in just a few minutes. Replacing the new motor was just as easy to reinstall. The fan was removed from the old motor and placed on the new for installation. The original motor was wired to accept a connector from the wiring harness of the refrigerator. I simply cut the connector off the wiring harness and stripped the insulation from the wires which easily allowed me to connet the wires of the motor and harness with two wire nuts. Three self tapping screws were used to hold the motor in place replacing the torx screws. Installed I plugged the unit in and immediately the fan started spinning as the unit came to life. Cleaned and replaced the cover over the back and slid back into its spot. Running as good as it did when it was new. Easy job to take care of.

I removed all the food items from the door. I removed the old gasket by loosening up the screws at the top of the door. The rest of the old gasket pulled out easily from the rest of the door. While the gasket was off, I took the time to clean up the door. I startede at the top of the door, loosening up the screws but not removing them. I then replaced each side of the door seperately. I found it helpful to have a flat blade to help poke the gasket into place. Because I was in the kitchen, I used a metal spatula. The corners were the trickiest. Using a hand held hair dryer helped to soften the gasket when it became cold. The freezer and fridge have good seals now and the refrigerator is good as new.

There is already a lot of good advice on this web site and others on how to diagnose and do this repair. I'll add a few additional comments that might be helpful.

I wanted to confirm that my old thermostat was in fact bad. I did this by disconnecting the two connectors and connecting them to each other to bypass the thermostat. This is like having the thermostat always closed. With the back panel still open so I could see the frozen coils I plugged the fridge back in and turned the defrost timer knob with a screwdriver to get to a defrost cycle. I could then see the heater element slowly melting the ice. This is of course not a safe way to operate the fridge. Over time this would get too hot and damage the food or worse. I only did this for a few minutes to see the system operating. I did not melt all the ice at that time. Also, it is of course dangerous to plug the fridge in with the panel open, so a great deal of caution is advised.

When I got my new thermostat I wanted to confirm that it worked before going through the install procedure. To do this I cooled it down and then used an ohm-meter to see that the circuit was closed. The important thing I found out is that ice-water, even 2 parts ice, one part cold water, was not cold enough to do this. Only when I put the thermostat into a cold freezer for a while did it get cold enough to close the circuit. I did this side by side with my old thermostat and saw that it was in face bad -it never closed the circuit.

This part from Part Select was an exact match for this freezer-on-bottom Whirlpool refrigerator. The connectors were identical so I did not have to solder wires together as others have need to do.

Some people get the ice off of the coils with a hair dryer. For me this could take half an hour. What worked better and much faster was spraying warm water on the ice with an old spray bottle. This adds extra water to the mix, but it did not overflow the drain pan. Even if it did, it would be easily mopped up if you can roll the fridge out.

One last thing. I suspect this thermostat broke in the winter, but with the dry air the fridge worked for a long time. Once summer hit and the house got humid, the coils iced up quickly.

Good Luck!

The fridge is in great shape but the seals/gaskets were shot. Between me, the wife and the kids the fridge door seemed like it was in constant motion.

Measue the seals, NOT THE DOOR. I measued from the straightest part of the seal at the edges and came within an quarter of an inch of what was offered here.

You have to take the seal off in stages, if you loosen all of the screws, the door will fall apart. Pick an edge (I started at the top) undo all of the screws and pull the old gasket off.

Then put the new gasket on the top (loosen a couple of screws on the sides if you can't get it to fit) and use a putty knife or a dull butter knife to sit it in place.

Once the top is in, screw the top screws back in and then take out the screws on the next side that you will work on. Go around the rest of the door the same way.

This is not a hard job, but it does have a pain in the rear factor. You have to move quick, especially on the freezer, but once you get the hang of it , it gets easy. But until you get the hang of it, you will be using some four letter words:)

I hope it extends the life of my fridge by another five years, so it is worth the money if the fridge is expensive. It will probably cost $100 or so for 2 seals (in my case a fride and a freezer seal), so if your fridge isn't worth the cost, you would probably be better off replacing the entire fridge.

I took off the faceplate on the back to access the compressor and took off the overload relay switch from the compressor. The overload fit on the compressor correctly. The top quick connect did not fit on the overload so I had to cut the quick connect off and replace the wires with correct size clamps and replace. It has been working fine.