Air Inlet Cover Kit WR49X10091

My repair experience was a little more complicated than previous posts, but nothing major. And most importantly replacing the Fresh Food Air Inlet Cover did fix my problem. Here are the steps I followed:
1. You will need to remove a minimum of the top two shelves to get access to the Air Inlet Cover. It runs along the back of the fridge and connects to a hole to the freezer side. It has a little fan inside that sucks the cold air from the freezer and diverts to the top and bottom of the fridge.
2. As mentioned in other posts, there are four screws holding the Inlet Cover in place, 2 lower and 2 upper. To get access to the lower two screws,you simply pop off the lower duct assembly (squeeze the sides). Be careful when removing and installing these screws. If you drop one into the lower duct, you will add a few more steps to the installation to remove more shelves and take out the lower duct to get to where the screw fell. Obviously this happened to me. Not difficult to do, just adds more time.
3. To access the upper two screws I had to remove the top light cover (one screw) and then slide out the top duct/diffuser assy (my name, not GE's).
4. Finally to get clearance to pull out the Inlet Cover, I had to remove the water filter and cover. When you pull away the Inlet Cover, you will see the electrical connection that is simple to disconnect.
5. After I removed my Inlet Cover, it was obvious that it was broken because it rattled and I could peek inside to see that the plastic air diverter/flapper thingy was broken.
6. One final surprise was that the replacement Air Inlet Cover did not exactly match the one I removed. The replacement only had one upper air outlet, while my old one had three upper outlets, left, right and center. I noticed there was a plastic cover over one of the side outlets on the replacement, so I just popped that off and hoped for the best.
7. The replacement Air Inlet Cover Kit came with sticky back insulation that you attach to where the Inlet Cover meet the freezer access hole to make sure snug fit to limit extra cold air leaking into the fridge side.
8. Installation of the replacement Air Inlet Cover was fairly easy, just follow the above steps in reverse and make sure you don't drop any screws.
It's been a couple of weeks since I performed this installation and my fridge has been maintaining temperature perfectly. No more frozen milk or lettuce. The wife is very happy.

I knew almost as soon as I found the frozen milk that the air-flow diverter, whatever it's called, had broken. It's a plastic part that opens and closes to allow cold air from the freezer into the fridge side.

Step one: clear off the top two shelves and take them out.

Step two: remove the lower piece of the assembly. It pops straight out at the top and drops down after that. If you pull the bottom straight out, you may break the bits that holds it to the fridge wall.

Step three: remove screws holding in light, and then the screws holding in the AASM COVER FF INLET K (wish I had a better name for it).

Step Four: Unplug the unit from the fridge wall.

Installation, reverse, except maybe unplug the unit earlier.

went online to an appliance repair site and found out that this model has problems with the damper malfunctioning. went to partselect and ordered what I needed and it arrived in two days. to replace the damper you just remove the light at the top of the frige and the cover around it . the damper assembly only has 2 screws and is easy to remove.

Initial diagnosis indicated faulty cold air damper, so first action was to remove the light assembly and then the plastic housing that contains the FF fan and damper. The two hidden screws at base of housing required removal of lower decorative plastic duct that turned to be held by snap in-tabs at top and slide away fastener at bottom. The damper housing is held to the roof of the FF chamber by two screws that were taken out to remove the light assembly.

When the plastic housing is pulled towards the front of the refrigerator, the multi-pin wire connector can be disconnected and the damper assembly easily removed.

Installation required need of a thin plate to seat a sponge rubber seal without damage, so I used a thin metal kitchen spatula. Nothing unexpected was encountered in reversing the disassembly process.

Although the new damper corrected the excessive cold situation, the temperature max-min span remained in excess of 15 degrees F, so the control panel was swapped in the small covered cavity located in the outside back of the refrigerator. A 1/4" nut driver and needle nose pliers were all the tools necessary for this operation.

Together the two replacement components have solved the frozen food problem and the over night max-min FF span is now 5 degrees or less.

There were not detailed instructions provided with the parts, however, it was fairly simple to determine how to remove the old part. First, I removed all the shelves. Then I took out four screws holding the top light cover. The plasic around the back center column was removed with a pannel tool. The plastic around the water filter was also removed. The old Fresh Food Air Inlet was then able to come out. Remove the connector. Reinstall per instructions provided. Install the other parts in order they were removed.

The trouble shooting information on the web site indicated that the damper door within the climate control unit may be broken. This was easily confirmed and the replacement of the climate control unit immediately returned the food locker temperatures to the digital electronic thermostat settings. The part has an improved ventilation gasket interface between the food locker and freezer. The unit works perfectly again, and the food locker temperature is exactly what the thermostat setting is.

It was a simple remove and replace. The new part fits directly in place of the old part. Its a pain to remove the light but once you get the light out the job is simple. The light must be pried out gently. It is snapped in place toward the air inlet cover and needs to be pried loose. Once the light is out there are 4 screws holding the air inlet cover in place. Remove the 4 screws and unfasten the wiring harness. Once the screws and wiring harness are disconnected remove the old part. Reinstall the new part in reverse order.

Removed light cover, found 2 screws in front and rear of light area.Remove screws and you can unplug light to get out of way, but not necessary. Next pop off plastic cover with flat head screw driver and remove the two screws under cover. Next pull cover off water filter and remove water filter this will give you room to slide inlet cover out. Install plastic cone provided by in new kit. Next slide new cover over cone and re-install bottom screws, however leave them loose in order to adjust for the following screws to line up. After all screws and plugs are in place snug all screws. Replace light cover an install water filter and cover. You are done.

remove light cover then remove 4 screws holding light fixture in place pulled out fresh food inlet cover and had to removed 2 more screws at bottom of cover then unplug electrical connector. replace with new one then replace all 6 screws and light cover done. so far its been working great no more freeze ups.

Taken longer to remove food out of refrigerator than replacing the part. Easy