Fix the ice maker and make it quieter

Hope this helps somebody and saves some time. My Electrolux EI23BC56IS8 fridge mfd 4/2011 quit making ice a couple weeks ago. It has through-the-door dispensing from ice maker in top-left of fridge. I pulled the ice bucket out and found a rubber tube snaked around the corkscrew auger inside and saw 2 small wires hanging down inside the ice maker cavity. On further investigation I found those wires went to some kind of sensor that plugged into a harness in the top of the ice maker. As I cleaned out the bucket, I found the plastic mount that was supposed to hold the sensor to the bottom of the ice tray had fallen off and was wedged into the grinder and chute that routes it all through the door.



I read that this problem has caused electric shock in others, so I guess I am lucky. What seems to have happened is when the auger was turning it snagged the sensor part that is attached to the bottom of the ice tray. It is held on only by zip ties. When it snagged that, probably with a chunk of ice, it pulled the sensor into the auger and that yanked the wires apart. Tracing the wires up into the roof of the fridge I could see they led to a flat plug, so they were easy to unplug.



I could not find just the wiring harness so I had to buy the whole assembly, including the top rails, sensor, wires, arm and the cube tray. It was part # 2 in the attached diagram. I got it locally for about $100, and it took about 20 minutes to install.




The next day we were pleased to have ice again. But, the fridge was making a racket now. The buzzing and humming was noisy. I traced that to the ice maker. After researching this issue it seemed to be ice build up clipping the fan blades in the fan behind the ice maker. It turns out I should have turned off the ice maker (door control panel) when I replaced that part. Duh. Also, 20 minutes or so of holding the door open made probably caused moist air to condense on the coils behind the ice maker. I could see ice behind the fan, and when I pressed on the fan motor between parts 33 and 24 in the attached diagram, the sound would change. (that fan is spinning fast and you can't see the blades so I carefully used a screwdriver to push the motor that can be seen through the opening. It's just like a computer case fan. Obviously plastic fan blades were hitting ice and it sounded like a buzz. That buzz would change tone as the fan sped up or slowed down periodically.





At first, I took a hair dryer to it, removing the ice bucket and blowing in the cavity for a couple minutes. The sound went away, but then it returned a couple hours later. Using a flash light I could see frost through the spinning fan blades, on the coils behind the fan. What I had to do, and it has been cured for 2 days now, is pull out the ice bucket, turn off the ice maker, get the hair dryer on high heat, and, this is the key, pull out a tube of aluminum foil to extend the reach of the hair dryer. Tubes of plastic would melt. I held the foil tube to the end of the hair dryer to get the air blowing right up against those openings in the back. I made sure to move the aim around so no plastic parts melted. The key is not just to melt the ice but to evaporate the water in there. It took maybe 5 minutes. Then, for good measure, I closed the door and let the temp equalize inside the fridge before re-inserting the ice bucket. So far so good.