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Hi it’s Steve from Partselect. Today we are going to show you how to change the thermostat
on your refrigerator. It’s a pretty easy job; all you are going to need is a quarter
inch nut driver, a putty knife, a pair of needle nose pliers and both a Philips and
flat blade screw driver. Let me show you how we do it.
Now before we begin this repair, the first thing we will need to do is pull the refrigerator
out far enough to disconnect the power supply. Next we will open up the refrigerator door
and its advisable to clear any items off of the top shelf. The thermostat is located right
behind this *** so we are going to have to pull this housing out so that we can access
the control. There are two quarter inch hex head screws going up into the ceiling behind
the control panel and there are two hidden behind this escutcheon.
So the first thing we will do is pull the knobs off, then with a thin blade putty knife
we will glean from the top of that escutcheon and just gently slide that out. It’s held
in place with a couple of tabs on the front. That will tilt down and unhook from the bottom.
There is a series of hooks across the bottom and a tab in each corner on the front. Now
with our quarter inch nut driver we can remove two screws from the front, and the two from
the back side.
Now you will need to support that as we remove the final screw. Now we can let that control
drop down. Next thing we will need to do is remove the cover panel over the capillary
tube and the cover from the air inlet. Now there is a single Philip screw that holds
that cover in place, we will remove that. And a single Philip screw that holds the cover
over the air inlet. We tilt that air inlet away from the housing and pull it out. Now
we have access to the control, so what we will need to do is remove one Philips screw
in the center at the bottom of the control housing and we will loosen the one to the
left of that.
Now we will need to remove the ground screw from the control and the two wires that go
to the control itself, you can use a pair of needle nose pliers and just slide those
off. Now at this point you should be able to tilt that control mounting bracket up far
enough to remove the two quarter inch hex head screws that hold that control to the
housing.
Okay, now we have the wire terminals removed from the control and the control removed from
the housing, we next are going to unhook that capillary tube from a little retaining clamp
over on the left hand side here. Gently pull that out of there and you can lift the control
and the cap tube right out through the back. Next we can dislodge the capillary tube from
around the air inlet opening, next we re-route that capillary tube around the connecting
rod for the freezer control. We can remove the whole assembly and we can set this on
a suitable work surface so that we can replace that plastic covering.
Now that we have the control out of the refrigerator and on a suitable work surface, what we need
to do next is remove this protective sleeve from the capillary tube so that we can reuse
it on the new control. So we will gently straighten this out as straight as you can make it. Take
all of the kinks and bends out of it, then we will pull that off of the old control
and we can discard the old control.
Next we will take the new control and very carefully uncoil the capillary tube that’s
on there we don’t want to damage this in any way at all, so we can get it as straight
as you possibly can, then we will slide that covering over the new capillary tube, just
a little bit at a time so we don’t kink it. Always do this by hand, we don’t want
to put a pair of pliers or anything that will crimp that capillary tube as it is a hollow
tube.
Now we want to make sure that we don’t have a lot of excess on the end, if there is just
a quarter of an inch or so that’s fine otherwise we will want to snip that off and we have
to be careful that you don’t touch the actual capillary tube.
Now before we install that back in the control panel we can do a preliminary bend on that
capillary tube, and it’s roughly about the spacing of the width of your hand folded and
if you remember how it laid in the air inlet duct assembly, it’s tilted over. Again being
very careful not to kink it, just to give you a rough shape, we can do the final fitting
once we have it installed.
Now we are ready to put it back in the control panel. Now that we are ready to reinstall
this control, the first thing we want to do is look at where the first bend has to be,
where it exists the control housing and goes along the left hand side wall. So we just
visually hold it up, see where that first bend is going to be and then just make a gentle
bend in the tubing, again being very careful not to kink it. We will just lay it up in
there, try to fit, looks about right.
Next we will center that control up on the mounting bracket and we will install one of
the screws just to hold it in place. I am going to install the second one, now we can
put the second screw into the mounting bracket from beneath and tighten up the one that we
just loosened. Just do a visual and make sure that control is centered of the opening for
the ***. I am going to carefully slide that capillary tube into the little retaining clamp.
Now we can reconnect the wires to the control and remember to install the ground lead. Make
sure they have a nice snug fit. Now we can lift the control housing up into place and
secure it across the front. We can install the ones in the back end, these are the screws
that have the larger flat washer molded to it. Now we can continue to locate the capillary
tube, it’s going to run along that back wall and we want to make sure that it does
not interfere with the rod that controls the air damper. Now there are little locking tabs
that will hold that capillary tube to the air inlet housing so we need to snap that
firmly into place and we will start with the end of the capillary tube, being as far back
as the opening of the air inlet duct. We will snap that one in first and we will wrap it
around in front of the housing and then snap in the bottom portion, again being very careful
when making turns on it. Now if you need to you can use a flat blade screw driver to press
that insulated capillary tube into position, make sure it is secure and wrap it around
the top again, fold it around the leading edge of that housing so it lays up against
the wall. And we are ready to put the cover on.
We want to make sure that this tab is inserted into the slotted opening on the back wall.
And make sure that that cover does not bind up on the air inlet or on the capillary tube
or the control arm for the freezer damper.
Now we can install a cover over the capillary tube. I am going to install the freezer *** just temporarily
to make sure that that damper turns easily, you need a full range of motion there, so
we pop that *** back off and now we will install the escutcheon, we want to make sure
that we engage tabs in the bottom, first. Then the two end tabs to hold it in place.
Replace the knobs.
Now we are ready to plug the refrigerator in and our repair is complete. Told you it
was an easy job. Thanks for watching and good luck with your repair.