— Begin quote from denman;570518
Sears should have a parts breakdown for this unit.
This will be a long reply but I will try to answer all your questions.
After removing the top freezer liner panels,I found the cooling condenser fins were a solid block of frost and ice. After defrosting the freezer it cooled downjust fine but the refrigerator would not stop running.
Sounds like a defrost problem. Defrost may check out OK now but odds are it will happen again so I would check it.
First remove the evaporator cover in the freezer so you can see the coils.
Do not let them de-ice.
If they are heavily iced/frosted over you have a defrost problem.
If yes.
Manually force a defrost cycle by turning the defrost timer (AP3110896) cam till the fans and compressor turn off. Looks like it is in your control module but I am not 100% sure of this.
Now check the defrost heater (AP3124622) to see if it is on.
Be careful you do not want to burn your fingers.
If the heater is on then the timer needs replacing, re: it is probably stalling during it’s rotation so is never getting into a defrost cycle.
If not on.
Unplug the unit.
Remove the wire for one side of the heating element (AP3124622) from the wiring and measure it for continuity, usually around 20 ohms or so.
If the heater is OK
Remove one wire to the defrost thermostat (Ap3108444) and measure it, should be 0 ohms when frozen. Note that it opens just above freezing so must be frozen to check it. Also inspect it, if it is bulged at all replace it even if it measures OK.
If both the above are OK then odds are the defrost timer contacts are toast.
Best way to test this is a live test to see if you have 120 volts across the heater/defrost thermostat combo.
Thesound seems to come and go every 2-3 seconds. Does not seem to be coming from the lower compressor but up top in thefan that is circulating the freezer air flow.
This may well be your problem. If the fan does not run or runs slow the unit cannot cool the air efficiently so it never reaches your thermostat’s set point.
[part]AP3110929[/part]
The freezer temperature should be 0 to 5 degrees F, you may want to check this.
but I question if thedefrost unit is cutting off completely as the freezer only cools down to about30 degrees.
I doubt that the poor cool down is due to it not completely turning off.
It is either full on (compressor and fans are off and defrost heater heats up till the frost is gone) or off. There is no in between.
Now I have the constant running and question if it is cooling correctly maybe due to a temperature sensor problem.
It sounds like the temperature sensor (thermostat) is OK. The unit is not getting cold enough so it never shuts the compressor off.
It sounds like the defrost problem may have screwed up your evaporator fan.
Also it looks like the unit should defrost every 8 hours or so. It will not take long for it to frost up heavily once again as you did a manual defrost so lots of warm moist air entered the unit and all that moisture will condense onto the evaporator coils.
The compressor and cooling fan seem to be fine.
I would check/clean the condenser (compressor) fan and the condenser coils under the unit. Also make sure the vents on the front kick plate are clean.
I do n ot think this is your problem but it will make the unit run more efficiently.
— End quote
[SIZE=3]Update[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Sorry for the delay in response as I have been out of town for weeks. During a short return home I tried your suggestions and made some closer observations to refine my problem.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]During my first discovery of the problem I had been gone for several weeks also. I stated the coils had been frozen solid. Once defrosted they have not frozen solid again and the defrost cycle seems to be working however that was during my manually turning the refrigerator on and off. This introduced lots of warm moist air as you stated and the coils would cover in a light frost but either the defrost cycle kicked in or I did not cycle the refrigerator quick enough as they would clear themselves. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3] I stated the refrigerator would not cool down below 30-40 degrees. Well that was because around that temperature the squealing noise would start and I would turn the unit off. After reading your response I tried letting the unit to run longer and just let the noise go. I found it would cool down to zero degrees with the refrigerator around 30 degrees. During this cooling cycle the squealing noise was found to start and stop in cycles and would last about ½ to 1 second in duration. After removing the fan I found no binding or excessive movement in the shaft and it seems to run at full speed with no noise until the freezer temp approaches 30-40 degrees. It seems to be associated with a power loss to the freezer fan motor as the motor slows down ant then returns to fullspeed. I assume the thermometer is trying to cycle off but immediately turns the fan back on indicating a bad thermometer and the noise is the deceleration of the motor.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]I tested the defrost heater tube and read 22.0 Ohms. I tried to test the Bimetal switch and if done correctly I read .5 Ohms warn and cooled the switch to below freezing andgot .6 Ohms. I will be returning to test again this weekend as I was not able to find and test the defrost timer. I think I found the timer but could not distinguish the cam you spoke of.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Because of the above description of what the fan is doing I have delayed buying a new fan until you reconsider the need parts I should order. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]Thanks for rethinking my problem and please advise needed parts and part numbers as before. This has been a real help.[/SIZE]