This evaporator fan motor is located in the back of the freezer, and circulates air over the refrigerator coils. These coils will convert the heat into cool air, which is then circulated.
This is a temperature sensing mechanism. It can sense the rise in evaporator temperature during a defrost cycle and cycles the defrost heater off after all frost is melted from the coils.
The old gasket was obviously gapping, partially from age and partially from damage during a move. To make the repair, I loosened the screws that are under the gasket and hold it in, but did not remove them. Once all were loose, I removed the old gasket, then starting at the top, ran a thin bead of food grade RTV under the portion of the door that captures the gasket. I put the sealant on that edge only, then carefully worked one of the short edges of the gasket under the plastic and tightened all but the corner screws. I then ran the RTV down the inside of the hinge side of the door and repeated the process, this time tightening the top screw and the hinge side screw at the top, but leaving the bottom most screw loose. I repeated the process on the opening side of the door. The bottom was the hardest because the gasket seemed just a little long and it was hard to get the RTV up and behind the door portion, but after a couple tried I got a good bead of sealant then slid the gasket under the door capture and tightened all the remaining screws. After closing the door, it was obvious that there were places were it did not seal well. I used some cardboard strips, cut from the box the gasket came in, to place inside the freezer, between the hard plastic of the door and the inside of the gasket where it laps over the screws. This helped a lot, but there were still a couple small areas, so I used more cardboard, from the outside, between the main portion of the gasket and the rim of the gasket. This eliminated all the gaps. I let this sit overnight and this morning removed all the cardboard for a great sealing freezer.
After silencing the alarm, it seemed to be running as normal without any unusual noises, but food was starting to thaw from the top shelf on down and condensation was dripping from the roof. We were able to place most of the food in 2 large ice chests and then the rest in the freezer compartments of 2 fridges we have in the house. I then turned down the temp dial to the coldest setting and let it run for an hour or so; no change.
After researching on the internet, it sounded like our symptoms could be pointing to a defrost timer issue. I pulled the freezer away from the wall, located the timer and used a large screwdriver to slowly advance it. While doing this, at one point I could hear the compressor kick in. I pushed the quick freeze button and let it run for a while. When I checked it in a few hours, the alarm light had gone out and water that I had placed inside was frozen. We took a chance and put the food we placed in the ice chests back in the freezer. Everything was fine several hours later.
I ordered a new defrost timer, it arrived in a couple of days, and replaced the old one with it in a matter of minutes by disconnecting the wire harness from the old timer, removing the 2 screws holding it onto the bracket, screwing the new timer to the bracket, reconnecting the wires harness, and done. It's been a week or so and no problems.
The repair was as easy as removing three phillip head screws for each slide rail and removing and replacing the broken slide rail. However, over the years, the walls of the freezer had bowed making the drawer a bit short to ride on the new rails -- causing the drawer to fall off the slide rails since the span between each rail was now wider than the basket. To remedy this problem. I used washers and placed them on the back side of each rail where the screws are located . This was the perfect solution compensating for the extra width resulting from the slightly bowed walls in the freezer. This solution allowed the basket to fit on each slide rail without falling off .
