CFE28TSHRSS General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

After replacing the Defrost Thermostat, Defrost Heater Assembly, and the Main Board, I concluded that the problem must be the Defrost Thermistor, which I replaced in less than 10 minutes and it fixed the problem! I cut the wires on the old thermistor and connected the new one after stripping the wires and taped the new connections with electrical wire. Fast and easy repair (the last part anyway ;).

followed part select video instructions

What an awesome site! After putting in my model number and finding the problem I was having, I simply picked the 2 parts that were most likely to solve the problem. I bought a defrost thermostat, and defrost heater. To a high certainty, they would solve my problem. They didn't however! I ended up having to buy a temperature sensor on another order a few weeks later when the problem resurfaced! My own fault. I should have bought it the first time. As others have written: the longest part of the job is defrosting the ice from the coil. One thing I did that I didn't see suggested: plug the drain hole below the coil. I put a couple towels in the bottom of the freezer and ran the hair dryer. Didn't take long. I read that the amount of water created will overflow the pan under the refrigerator, so I plugged the drain hole. Once you clean that mess up, the repair is pretty straight forward. Great site. Even through I had to make two separate purchases, I still saved a lot of money. Thanks!

First, I had to remove the freezer drawer front. This is 8 large phillips head screws. then remove the plastic cover over the drawer slides. to do this, remove the white center screw from the slide near where it attaches to the drawer front. then the plastic cover will slide off pushing to the rear of the slide. take off the slides from the freezer walls by removing the phillips screws and pulling them towards you. They have tabs/slots in the rear. remove the center tray support and support bars, too. the icemaker has to come out, that is just 2 phillips screws but you also have to disconnect the electrical connector. just squeeze the locking wings and rock/pull. a screw in the top center of the back panel comes out. Lift and pull the back panel out. The evaporator coil appears. The thermocouple is attached to the coil in the upper right. Cut that one's wires and take it out. Just cut back about an inch from the back of the thermocouple, there is not much slack. Seperate and strip the wires back about 3/8 inch. Do the same for the new thermocouple. I twisted the wires together and used a solder sleeve to join the wires. The sleeve is just a little plastic tube that has a ring of solder in it that melts with heat gun heat. You can join the wires using butt connectors or whatever method appeals to you. I just wound the extra wire and put a cable tie around it, there is plenty of hiding space in that area. Make sure the new thermocouple is contacting the coil firmly.At this point, for a test, I left everything apart, propped the drawer against the opening and plugged the fridge in. Note that the evaporator fan will not start spinning immediately! It will just sit there making little bumps like it wants to go. The temp in the coil has to get settled before the electronics in the refridge will tell the fan to spin. It takes maybe 20 minutes. Reassemble. Fridge and freezer work great. It does take several hours for all to get cold again.

Unplugged unit and removed vented cover over compressor section. The run capacitor is a simple fix 1 Phillips head screw and 2 spade wire connectors. For the temperature sensor I had to remove all drawers and the ice maker to remove the back cover to expose the condenser. Put a bowl at the drain stem in the rear of the unit and used a heat gun to defrost the coils on the condenser. Cut the wire about 3" from the sensor end . cut about the same off the new sensor stripped the wires put shrink wrap on each wire, attached butt connecors . heat gun for the shrink wrap and reassembled everything. Simple job that took about a half hour to do both. I will monitor the fridge for a couple of weeks to see if I need to change the control board.

Easy. Followed the video instrucations. the part was right there next to the compressor.