BR18V2W (P1320708W W) Amana Refrigerator - Instructions

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 ;)

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!

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.

When the gaskets arrived, in only two days, we unpacked them and layed them out overnight to allow them to come to room temp. The next day I emptyed the frig while my son took out the 20 or so screws around the door. We then layed the door panel on the living room floor pulled off the old gasket replaced the new, lined up the panel and replaced the screws. We did have to put blue painters tape on the doors until the gaskets seated. We suggest this might be included with the directions. This was a very easy DIY project. I belive it will ad years of service to the frig. After all it's cheeper to maintain and repair than to replace.

Turn water and refrigerator off, use hair to thaw the ice maker filler tube, then remove the filler tube inside the freezer. Next remove the water supply line cover plate in back of the refrigerator. Now remove the speed clip at the white pvc elbow and pull out the supply line. Next, grasp the pvc elbow with pliers and pull hard to remove. The new filler tube is a 1 piece design (filler tube and elbow combined) and needs to be cut to the proper length. Mark it inside the freezer, remove it and cut to length. Now coat the outside flange with caulk or PU glue and snap into the opening. Put the speed clip on the elbow first and center it. Ensure that the spreader insert is in place in the plastic tube, then slide the supply line into the elbow untill completely engaged. Replace cover.

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!

I removed two screws and the old handle. I installed the new handle with the two screws.

The new Ice Maker Assembly arived in less than 24 hours. I was amazed that it came so fast.

I had already removed the old ice maker in order to get the modle number.

I just took two parts off of the old ice maker and quickly snapped them into place on the new ice maker. Then attached it to the refrigerator in less than 10 minutes. With in a few hours I had ice again !!!!!

I would definatly use partselect.com again.

First I had to determine what was wrong. Obviously the compressor was working since the freezer was cold. Digging for awhile revealed that the evaporator coils for the freezer had frozen up into a solid block of ice. Then I had to figure out why. Tested the defrost heater in place--small resistance (~3 ohms), OK. Removed and tested the timer--unsure. Removed and tested the defrost thermostat--did not turn on when plunged in ice water or frozen with canned air (turn the can upside down--be careful!, you can instantly freeze-burn your skin), bad. Chose to purchase and replace both the timer and the thermostat. Took the opportunity to THOROUGHLY clean everything, front, back, and underneath. Found the drip tray transition piping cracked at the junction and replaced it with a cut-off funnel "glued" into place and to the underside piping with the RTV Silicone. When parts arrived, tested them and confirmed that the original timer was OK and the thermostat was bad. Installed the new thermostat (and went ahead and installed the new timer). NOTE: one connector on the thermostat was not identical to the orginal equipment. Rather than cut the refrig wiring, I chose to build a jumper with the original connector on one end and a new one for the new thermostat on the other. Buttoned everything back up, re-leveled it, and let it run for 24 hours at the manufacturer's recommended "first" settings (4 and 4) without being disturbed. Seemed fine, loaded it with food, everything is great including non-frozen veggies! (I suspect the ice was forming frequently and blocking the return from the refrig compartment, which is right next to the veggie drawer.)

Had to remove screws inside back of freezer panel, took off old thermostat. This one had a different plug on the end that wasn't compatible, so had to cut that off and wire it to the old plug end. Piece of cake. Put back panel back on and back in business. Hardest thing was getting the screws out!

tested bulb good ,replaced door switch first(least expensive)then ordered light socket and circuitboard.If clicking sound is heard replace circuitboard first to save on return shipping because the switch and socket where ok

I unplugged the fridge. Loosened the 2 top screws on the ice maker and removed the lower screw. I disconnected the wiring harness and removed the Ice maker. I removed the plastic timer cover in front. I then loosened the screws on the face of the ice maker and removed the broken ice stripper and replaced it with a new one. Re-tightened the screws on the face, installed the timer cover, plugged in the wiring harness, re-attached the ice maker. Plugged the fridge back in and walla, it was making ice in 30 minutes!

The old icemaker had a bad motor and would stall in the fill cycle causing my kitchen to flood on occasion.

The new one was so quiet, I thought it didn't work!

Anyway, one nutdriver and 5 minutes and I had the new one in there... It is so quiet, and I always have plenty of ice now!!!

Thanks!!!