Appliance Repair Wisdom for the Ages

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

So your fancy Whirlpool or KitchenAid Side-by-Side with the in-door icemaker quit making ice for your margaritas? And it's one of those space-age looking icemakers with the red LED and infrared ice level sensor? Well, Grasshopper, go pour yourself a tall cold one, and get me one while you're at it, because the Samurai is gonna 'splain to you how to fix the two most common reasons these suckers stop making ice.

Reason Numero Uno: Frozen Fill Tube

These units have the fill tube in the freezer ceiling that can keep freezing up. The cure is to replace the existing fill tube with a new kit from Whirlpool, consisting of a modified fill tube and a fill tube heater. You can buy it here. This, of course, assumes the icemaker and level sensing circuitry are attempting to function normally. You can test the icemaker by manually initiating a harvest cycle. Do this by pulling the front cover off the icemaker and jumpering out test points T and H with an insulated wire. The other most common problem is bad optics circuit boards. Keep reading.

Reason Numero Duo: Bad Optics Circuit Boards

If the red status LED is not lit on your ice level sensor receiver (it's the only LED in there, Hoss, so don't go gettin' all cross-eyed on me 'cause I'm using fancy words), then you may have bad optics circuits. Close the freezer door and wait five minutes, then open it back up. If still no status light, then you need to replace the optics boards, emitter and receiver. You can buy them here.

Ok, go fix your icemaker and buy me a margarita. I like 'em smooth and made with Jose Cuervo Tradicional.