Evaporator Fan Blades

Noticed refrigerator making a noise, the noise would get louder when the freezer side door would be open. After awhile the noise stopped and noticed the refrigerator was no longer cooling. Looked in the freezer and noticed the back was iced up around the evaporator panel. Removed food and shelves on freezer side to gain access to the evaporator panel. Turned the Defrost timer knob manually to melt ice build up. Unplugged refrigerator. Then removed the 11 screws(1/4 inch screwheads). Noticed evaporater fan was stuck on fan shroud. Removed 2 (1/4 inch screwheads) and pulled the fan motor out. Noticed front bearing was leaking a black residue and that the motor shaft was extremely loose and not spinning true. Put back in for time being to order parts. Ordered parts from Partselect.com, website was easy to navigate and they had excellent diagrams of the parts. Ordered new evaporater fan, grommets, and fan blade. Received parts next day sooner then expected. Took a digital picture of fan motor wires to ensure proper re-install of wires afterwards. Unplugged refrigerator, removed two power wires and green grounding wire to fan motor. Took note of fan position on shaft and direction of fan fins. Took 2 (1/4 inch screwheads) to remove fan motor from fan motor mount. Removed old fan blade from old fan motor shaft to get front motor mount bracket off old motor. Put new grommets on new fan motor, put in fan motor mount, installed 2 screws. Installed new fan blade shaft on new motor shaft made sure it was the same depth on shaft as the old set up. Reinstalled motor into refrigerator with two screws, reinstalled wires, verified correctly hooked up with digital picture took. Plugged refrigerator back in, verified fan worked and proper direction of air flow, began cooling. Reinstalled panel and 11 screws, shelves and waiting for it to cool down before putting food back in. Cooled down, no problems since and noise is gone. Looked at old motor and noticed front bearing failed and wore down the shaft causing it to spin out of round and make the loud noise. Thank you Partselect.com for having the great web-site to navigate and diagrams to verify I was getting the correct parts.

Unplugged fridge.
Opened the back panel in freezer with nut driver. Removed nuts to compressor fan mount with nut driver. Old fan blade was not fixed on fan post, i.e., spinning freely. Pressed new fan blade on, remounted fan motor mount, and plugged in fridge. Fan works. Unolugged fridge again to replace the evaporator thermostat at the same time. Note: Tug gently on the thermostat lead that goes through a hole in the back panel. The wires pull relatively easy but the hidden connector is not connected on the other end and needs to be gently tugged through that hole which is shared with a wrapped HVAC line. It wasn't too difficult but it finally pulled through. Then I pushed the new wires and connector back through the same hole. The other wire connectors around the evaporator are attached in the same manner as the old. Zipped tied the wires into a tight bundle that wouldn't interfere with the fan.
Remounted back panel in freezer with nut driver. Everything works great. Stay frosty my friends!