Quote:
Originally Posted by speeder
One friend suggested that the thermostat quit working.
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I spent a few years working on GE refrigerators in the early 70s. Yours looks familiar, but I don't know it's vintage. Anyhow, I NEVER had a call where the thermostat went out. 99% of calls were one of the first five below. The first five you can diagnose yourself.
The problems, in order:
1. Defrost timer stopped working. The result was the evaporator iced up and often broke the defrost heater (a glass tube with a heating element in it). The symptoms are evaporator coils clogged with ice.
2. The defrost heater burned out. The symptoms are evaporator coils clogged with ice.
3. condenser coils were clogged with dog hair and other crap. They are pretty good at dispersing heat even with a lot of crap on them, but there is a limit.
4. evaporator fan stopped working. The evaporator fan is in the freezer, under the freezer floor.
5. condenser fan (under the refrigerator, draws air over the condenser coils) burned out
6. compressor start relay not working
7. compressor burned out
The freezer may still seem to be working because the evaporator coils are in the freezer and the compressor and cooling system are still working. It sounds like an air handling problem. The refrigerator section depends on the evaporator fan blowing air over the evaporator coils and sending it down to the refrigerator. If the evaporator coils are clogged with ice the freezer will stay cold but the evaporator fan can’t move air over them to send down to the fridge.
The first thing you should do is take the floor out of the freezer and see if the coils are free of ice and see if the fan is running.