Ice Maker Question.

[volvoguy87]

We have a Frigidaire refrigerator of recent vintage and we are having some trouble with the ice maker. I think the ice maker is a Whirlpool design, it makes crescent-shaped "cubes." Lately it has been making ice extremely slowly and sporatically. This is a problem because it is now summer in Savannah, meaning that it is prime gin & tonic season, and I am missing out for lack of ice. Sometimes I'll open the freezer and I'll see that the shut-off bar is in a middle position between horizontal (off), and vertical (pointing down, meaning on). When it is in this position, I can move the bar to "off," but I cannot move it to "on," even if I move it to "off" first. Is something broken, frozen, or out of adjustment, or am I stuck with a gimpy ice maker and an unsettlingly sober summer in the south?

I await your reply, drink not in hand,
Dave

 

[danemodsandy]

Just Replace It

Dave:

These icemaker kits are available all over eBay for very little money- from $30 or so to about $55. Popping a malfunctioning unit out and putting in a new one is easy- diagnosing and repairing an existing one is a whole lot harder in many instances. Been there, done that, wouldn't do it again, LOL.

Search on "frigidaire icemaker kit" on eBay. Your fridge's owner's manual should have the correct icemaker model number listed in it, or you might look on the existing icemaker to see if it has a model number on it.

 

[coldspot66]

You could have a small piece of ice stalling the mechanism. Try running hot air from a hair dryer over the mold to see if it releases and continues with the harvest.

 

[selectomatic]

Or it could be overfilling.

My old Coldspot icemaker would periodically jam up mid-cycle. Looking at it with a flashlight, I could see that the ice tray had overfilled, and the crescents were connected over the tops of the dividers.

I'd hold the icemaker from below, and use my thumbs to force down the paddles that push the ice until the ice crescents would break apart. Then the machine would continue working just fine . . . until next time.

-kevin

 

[xyz]

This is an ageold question. I think all the above answers are correct. It could be any of the above. But I would think that if your ice is sticking together, you may need to up your thermostat a bit to colder and drier.

 

[fa_f3_20]

I have, for no good reason, spent quite a bit of time hacking the Whirlpool ice maker. Several years ago, the motor quit in the one in our (now 8-year-old) Kenmore. It was cheaper to buy a whole new ice maker than it was to buy the motor, so I bought a new one and popped it in. But, you know, I had that old one that was perfectly good except for the dead motor, so... I hacked on it. I figured out what all of the test points are on the front, and how to jumper them to make the ice maker do whatever I wanted it to do. I fixed a fill problem, and figured out how to tweak the timer to make the cycle a little faster (less dead time between ejecting cubes and the next fill). Eventually I wound up rebuilding the old ice maker, putting in the motor from the new one, and swapping out the new one for my "hot rodded" old one. This was about four years ago, and that ice maker is still in the fridge today.

One of the problems our old house had was high water pressure. The ice cubes came out big, even with the size adjustment all the way down. I figured out how to hack the electrical contacts on the back of the big gear wheel to reduce the fill time. That worked for a while, then it stated making big cubes again. Then it started over-filling. Power was only being applied to the valve for a second or two. I couldn't figure it out. Then one day I listened carefully to the fill cycle. I could hear the valve solenoid hum, and I realized that the water was continuing to run for about five seconds after the power was removed from the valve. Aha! I put in a new valve. Problem solved. It made ice like a champ for the rest of the time it was in that house, until the fridge got put into storage while we built our new house.

Since we moved, it has developed a minor problem that I haven't gotten around to fixing yet. It's actually nothing wrong with the ice maker itself. When the fridge was moved, one of the legs got damaged, and now I can't get it level. It leans slightly towards the back. Since the ice maker thermostat is in the front, it doesn't get completely covered with water, and it gets cold too fast. That makes the ice maker eject cubes that aren't frozen all the way through. Sometimes the cubes split as they are being ejected, and the broken pieces of ice cause jams. I loosened the mounting screws and wedged it to get it closer to level, and that is helping somewhat. I have to un-jam it every 2-3 days. I'm living with it because I'm really not looking forward to the effort of replacing the broken leg.

 

[selectomatic]

fa_f3_20's explanation would account for my Coldspot&#39

If my Coldspot's valve had been closing slowly sometimes but not others, that would be why it only acted up every so often, and then worked fine for a period of time.

-kevin

 

[whirlcool]

Kinda on subject, but when (what year) did ice makers start appearing in home refrigerators. I think the first one I saw was around 1968 or so.

 

[exploder3211]

1964 is what i recall from a GE

 

[coldspot66]

Our 1966 Coldspot bottom freezer "twindoor Cupboard" (aka today's French door) had an icemaker.

 

[jamiel]

Believe first was in 1957 or so from Whirlpool/Servel (yes, gas refrigerators). It was the semi-circular design which is the common one now. There was an autofiller for regular cubes from Admiral I think in about the same timeframe. 1960 or so were the GE flat pan on the bottom-freezer with the auto-fill (what a clever design...first was separate ice trays then the big flat plastic one). Moving to automatic, I think there were 3 original designs....the semi-circular Whirlpool, the round cylinder General Electric and the small square Admiral (twisting tray). The GE design died probably about 1980, Admiral about 1992, and Whirlpool design is all there is now. The Admiral design lasted because it would work with a through-the-door top freezer dispenser, as I recall, plus would work with the ice cream maker (clever design), but it was very susceptible (I recall) to the level of the unit and ultimately, when it broke, was fixed with the Whirlpool design.

 

[fa_f3_20]

Was the Admiral design the one with the tray that flipped over? My wife's old fridge had that. It was great when it worked, but it didn't work very often. We have hard water, and the slightest bit of leftover mineral in the try kept the cubes from falling out, and then of course it overflowed on the next fill. We had to clean it so often that eventually the finish on the tray was worn off, and the ice would not drop at all. About that time, we got a new Kenmore, so I didn't fool with it any further.

I do wish it had worked better because, to be honest, I hate the stupid Whirlpool crescent cubes. They form an "ice dam" where the curve of the crescent fits the curve of your glass. You try to drink and you don't get anything, so you tilt the glass further. And then eventually the whole thing breaks loose and you get a face full. Sort of like Ted Stryker's "drinking problem" in Airplane!.

 

[rp2813]

Cornutt you are so right about the crescents. I made sure I got the crushed option on my last fridge because I was so sick of ice dams. I even bought square highball glasses in an attempt to thwart the damming action but nothing helps. I use crushed ice setting exclusively now.

 

[whirlcool]

I agree as well with the ice damming problem. It's an aggravation. You usually have to put your finger in the glass to rearrange the ice. And I thought I was the only person who had this problem!

Now on commercial ice machines, the kind you see in hotels (I certainly spend enough time in them!) the ice is round with a hole in the middle. That works perfectly.

 

[rp2813]

Allen, I agree, you'd think they'd come up with a shape that didn't cause damming. The old GE's that produced the semi-spherical shape apparently were problematic, which is too bad. I can understand that a crescent shape may be the least troublesome from an operational standpoint, but for the end user the crescents are truly annoying. Maybe some engineer will come up with an improved shape someday that doesn't compromise reliability, which already isn't exactly 100% when it comes to ice makers.

Ralph