Fridge was purchased in Sept. 2000.

~3 months ago the ice maker & the water thru door stopped working. I replaced the filter and that solved the water thru door problem.

Yesterday morning the freezer was wasn't working & everything thawed..... Wife moved the freezer control bar from 3 to 7 and that seemed work until this morning. Everything is thawed - again. I found the little slide door on the bottom was in the cool position (completely closed).

The fan in the freezer is working & the fan on the back is working. It appears the compressor is not working. I hear a 'click' every 20-30 seconds like a relay is trying but not succeeding.

Help, please.....

Brian

Well, it looks like the PTC relay is fried - the rattle sound & burn marks are a give away.

Given this failure what else should I be checking?

Brian

Thats it, but its always a good idea to change the overload as well.

Here is the compressor relay for your model:
Relay, start

Here is the overload:
Overload

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

Jake,
Here's what the part looks like:

http://www.repairclinic.com/referral...1265&N=1021860

Not sure what the difference is between the parts you posted and what I have. According to the local shop it's P/N 61005504 (old P/N 61003115) - these are the same P/Ns listed on sears.com

Brian

So it turns out I ended up getting the parts Jake posted. The tech at the local shop said the part I have is the new all-in-one failure prone version and the parts Jake posted are the older style that don't fail. The tech was very helpful and sketched out the proper wiring diagram & gave me a few spade connectors - turns out I needed to change the double orange wire terminal.

I've got the parts installed but now I have a couple of questions:
1. How often should the compressor start relay be cycling? It's cycling every couple of minutes.

2. I see a blue spark near the short unused terminal on the overload when the relay cycles. I'm not an electrician by any means but when I see sparks I figure things aren't right since the magic smoke may be let out....

Brian

Yet more info....

Evap & condensor fans work as well as all the lights.

I turned the defrost timer screw a couple rotations but I'm not sure if that did any good.
The compressor appears to be:
click/spark at the overload, 7 seconds, click/spark at the overload, 2 minutes of run time, click/spark at the overload, 7 seconds, click/spark at the overload, 2 minutes of run time. During the 7 second period it feels like the compressor is shutting off (I'm touching the top of the compressor) and it looks like the condensor fan is slowing down.

There is continuity between both terminals (double orange wire & white wire) of the start relay and from each of the start relay terminal to the overload terminal (blue wire). I measured 6.4 ohms between the start relay terminals (double orange & white), 2.9 ohms between the double orange start relay & blue overload terminals, 3.8 ohms between the white start relay & blue overload terminals.

There is continuity across the run capacitor (1x2x1 black cube with two single spade terminals - one orange wire, one white wire) with 4.9 ohms measured.

I do not have an AC amp meter but I'm sure I can borrow one if needed.

Not sure what all this means - I don't have a repair/trouble shoot manual.

Fridge is unplugged as I don't want to leave on overnight with the overload thing sparking.

Thanks,
Brian

Ok, it sounds like your compressor is shot, because everything you have done seems correct.

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