B136CAL1 Amana Refrigerator - Instructions

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.

1. turn off power.
2. pop off ice maker cover to access motor assembly.
3. remove three screws to assembly.
4. pull off assembly.
5. attach new assembly making sure metal arm and plastic
ice tray rod align with assembly.
6. screw assembly onto unit.
7. replace cover.
8. plug in refrigerator.
9. enjoy ice again with no leakage into freezer.

We weren't sure if the problem was in the Water Inlet Valve or in the Icemaker Control & Motor Assembly. The water in the door did work. We removed the Water Inlet Valve & tested it with an Ohm Meter. It tested good so we put it back in. We then ordered the Icemaker Control & Motor Assembly. When it arrived we installed it and waited a few hours but the icemaker still did not fill with water. We telephoned a parts store and were told the problem could be the thermostat or we could replace the whole icemaker. We replaced the whole icemaker.

I removed the shelves from the freezer. I unscrewed 6 screws with a 1/4" nut driver and removed the back panel. The coil was solid ice because the defrost cycle wasn't working. I thawed the ice with a hairdryer (5 minutes), unplugged the thermostat and installed the new one (it simply clipped on to the coils), and reassembled the back panel and installed the shelves. Total time, about 14 minutes. Total cost, less than $20.00. I can't even get an appliance repairman to show up at my door for less than $100.00! Thanks to your website, I was able to diagnose my problem, order the correct part and fix it myself! (I bookmarked your site under my favorites). Thanks for this great consumer service. It's easy, inexpensive and quick to do it yourself!

An easy job for smaller hands. Removed the two bolts holding the light cover. Removed two electrical connections from the old switch by pinching the retaining clip,removed the switch, snapped in the new one and re-attached the connectors. Your online illustrations helped me to know that the plastic housing for the light switch would only swing down so far and was not intended to be removed. Saved me from breaking that plastic cover's tabs. This home repair saved me more than 5 times the cost of hiring a professional to do it. Very happy homeowner.

I checked the fuses and hoses in the back of the refrigerator to make sure water WAS in fact getting to the front of the fridge. Since the water through the front door worked fine, I had to check the water tube running to the ice maker. It was fine and water was waiting to go somewhere! I decided to pull the icemaker out of the fridge to see what I could fine. Once it was out, I took the ICEMAKER CONTROL AND MOTOR ASSEMBLY off (that's the side part with the dial on it). Only 3 screws to take that off, and it was EASY to see what was wrong once I took that off. There was a connection that was obviously bad (looked almost like it had burned out). My thought was that it was obvious what part was bad, what would it hurt for me to try to fix it myself? When I got online to find the part, PartSelect was the only one that I found that had the EXACT part that I needed, and lucky for me, there were multiple pictures of multiple angles of the part so I could compare and make sure I had the right one!! The part with shipping cost less than the cost of a repair tech to even come out and look at the fridge. Then add the cost of the part and labor if I had the repair tech fix it...I probably saved about $250!!!!

Replaced the compressor with the new one I purchased from you. Installed new parts and recharged unit. The refrigerator / freezer is working better than new. Thanks for the great deal on the compressor. It was here in 3 days. All the parts fit exactly and had no difficulty in the installation or startup. The directions for the wiring were a great help also. Thanks again.

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 ;)

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!

removed the three screw holding the broken unit - pulled off the old module.

Before I could install new module I had to loosen some fasteners on ice maker so I could turn shaft to align with new module.

Then push on new unit and three screws. Had tumbling ice in about an hour. My wife thinks I'm a hero. (I am)

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.

Philips head screwdriver and ten minutes was all it took! I removed the two screws that hold the icemaker assembly in place, then pulled it out a little and disconnected the electrical plug freeing the icemaker assembly. Then I snapped the external parts off my old icemaker assembly and snapped them on the new icemaker assembly. Installing the new icemaker assembly was just as fast and easy. I snapped the electrical plug into the new icemaker assembly, then screwed in the two screws. It was making ice shortly thereafter. Glob free ice! I'm glad I didn't call a repairman. I probably saved a hundred bucks. A ten year old could accomplish this simple and easy task. No wonder the Maytag repairman has time on his hands.

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!

Water was dripping out of top freezer door and had water under the refridgerator. I could hear a clicking noice from bottom of refrigerator every 3-5 minutes.
After removing back panel, I noticed the fan was running and the clicking seemed to be coming from somewhere around the compressor which was warm. I noticed on the site a simular problem had been submitted. It said to remove the start relay and if it rattled it was bad. I removed two wires from it ( it is connected onto the side of the compressor) then took a small screw driver to pry it away from the compressor. It not only rattled but had tiny pieces falling out. I ordered the part and replaced it in less than 15 minutes total and all is well.