46659B Frigidaire Freezer - Instructions

The sliding shelf side rail is held by three philips head screws that tighten into nut inserts. No amount of tightening would keep two of the three screws tight. I found that the nut inserts which are plastic and insert into the side of the freezer would pull loose, probably from years of overloading the sliding shelf basket. Ordered two nut inserts from PartSelect. 1. Remove three screws to remove shelf slide side rail. 2. Remove nut inserts to be replaced with needle nose pliers or reinsert screw a couple of turns and pull nut insert out with pliers. 3. Insert new nut inserts, position side rail, and tighten screws. Replace sliding shelf/basket.

Unplug the refrigerator unit from wall. I removed freezer rack, plastic light cover, the ice rack shelf on the right side, then removed the plastic back cover panel, (4) retaining screws, gently tilting the panel toward me, unplug the wiring harness by depressing the clips on the side of the plug, removed panel from unit, set aside. If the unit was froze up, so I defrosted the cooling coils carefully with a common hair dryer until it was thawed. Be careful not to touch or bend the coils , since they are very fragile and SHARP! I located the old thermostat unit attached to a straight length of coolant line. The new unit looked like the old one, so it was easy to locate. I cut the two wires of the old unit close to the round base to make sure I would have enough wire to reconnect. Since my new unit did not indicate a polarity(Neg or Pos), I just wired each wire I cut to one of the new unit. I used the shrink tubing provided and heated the shrink till it was fully melted. I double ck'd to see if the wires were basically waterproof and a good connect. Also, before I replaced the rear panel, I made sure that both wires I had spliced had a drip loop to it so water would not drip down into the newly spliced union. Also made sure the wires will not interfere with the colling fan on the back of the rear panel. Reverse the procedure in reassembling. Plug in unit, and wait and listen for the unit coming back on..I kept a regular thermometer in the upper and lower compartments. Allow 24 hrs. for the unit to return to normal operation. It may defrost several times till the whole operation is back in sync.

Notice ice build up on the panel in front of the evaporator coil. Unplugged freezer and removed evaporator panel. Plugged unit back in and checked fan, coil "snap switch" and heater element, all seemed to check out good. Found defrost timer stuck in the freeze position, causing frost to accumulate over the evaporator. Manually rotated defrost timer to the 30min defrost cycle and system went into defrost. Ordered defrost timer and installed (part arrived in 3 days). Freezer works great again. Too bad I ended up throwing 400 dollars worth of meat away. the fix was very simple. Will definitely use PartSelect again. Thank you.