I have an Amana Side by Side (don't know the year, was in the house we bought, I want to say circa. 2001). The refridgerator is working, the bottom half of the freezer seems to be working (food has not thawed), but the top half of the freezer had thawed and obviously some temp. control won' t let water in the ice-maker. Where is the best place to check to see if a fan or something has stopped working?

Remove the panel covering the evaperator inside of the freezer to see if the fan is not running....

Yeah, sure enough, the fan wasn't running.

Well ok, now if you have voltage to the motor replace the motor, if you do not have voltage to the motor need to see where it was lost...

Thanks for your help. I let everything thaw and then checked the voltage and while I was checking the voltage, I was getting nothing, then the fan clicked on and I was getting 119 Volts. I am letting it run to see what happens.

Strange, is possible the fan motor runs thru a defrost termination thermostat and kicked on when the thermostat got down to temperature.....could have been frozen up but that would not explain the no voltage problem....let us know how this goes....

Whats the model# of your refrigerator? Its located inside the refrig. section on the upper walls or ceiling.

I replace alot of defrost thermostats(bi-metal) on these Amana models, that causes this issue your having.

You can do a forum search here for the words: defrost thermostat

You'll see lots of other threads on this as well.

Jake

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It is a SRD26VPSE.

-- update --
It ran for 36 hours and now the fan has stopped again.

Thanks.

Here's the parts diagram for your model:
SRD26VPSE
Diagram#4 part location #0023 is your defrost thermostat, thats likely the problem.

Jake

__________________
Appliance Repair School 1987-1988
Star Appliance Tech. 2 yrs. 1988-1990
Wards Appliance Tech. 11 yrs. 1990-2001
Sears Appliance Tech. 4 yrs. 2001-Oct. 2005
Jake's Appliance Repair Nov. 2005-present

If you need more repair advice help on your appliance, click Here

Look-Up & Order Parts

Shop Home Appliances

Thanks everybody for the help. I did replace the defrost thermostat Monday night and the fridge is running good so far. $26 for the part and $30 for dry ice. I am happy to have it going again.