Relay WP10097204

Our refrigerator was no longer emitting cold air and clicking every 5 minutes in what sounded like a "starter" click and then a few minutes later an ending/"shutoff" click. Nothing else would happen between the clicks and we could still hear the freezer fan running in the freezer.

Frequent clicks meant that the starter relay was broken and that the condenser was not failing to start thus failing to cool.

I found very useful videos showing this process on Youtube but here are instructions:

Unplug the refrigerator and open up the back panel on the bottom. The condenser is a black round metal sphere in the center. To the right is the condenser coil which is a flat coil. Attached on the left side of the condenser is a plastic casing with wires coming out from the bottom, that is the relay housing.

Pull the plastic casing off, it is held by a metal clamp. Underneath the plastic casing is the relay. it is attached to the condenser with a straight long pin.

Pull the relay straight out, away from the condenser. You may use a flathead for leverage but I used some elbow grease and slowly wiggled it out.

Look at the relay. For my Admiral, the relay has a little headpiece that sits on the relay and connects to the pin. Otherwise you will have pulled out the relay piece and there will be wires connecting to terminals on the relay.

Remove the wires connecting to the terminals, noting which wires connect to which terminals. Take a picture on your phone if you need to. You may want to use pliers to maintain the terminal connectors on the wires and it may take some elbow grease.

Once all the wires are disconnected from the old relay, discard the old relay. You will know if it's faulty if you shake it and it sounds like it's full of broken glass. A new relay will not make that sound.

Connect the wire connectors to the new relay in the correct terminals.

Reconnect the new relay to the condenser by pushing it back onto the pin all the way.

Replace the plastic cover with the metal clamp.

Clean the dust off the condenser coils while you have the chance.

Replace the back panel and plug in the refrigerator. You should not hear any more clicking and you should feel the air from the freezer become cooler pretty quickly.

I took off the plastic cover plate that covers the overload and relay on the condensor. There are Three pins; two connecting to the relay and one to the overload. I removed the wires from the overload and relay and used a screwdriver to pry them from the pins on the condensor. I reinstalled the overload and relay and she works like new. When you shake the bad relay it sounds like there is broken glass in it.