Kenmore ice maker acting strange

BJLower · 10-15-2008, 12:12 PM

Our ice maker is acting very strange. We pulled the refrigerator out just a small amount to get something that fell behind the fridge and the ice maker suddenly started acting up. It's a Kenmore that came with the fridge. Love their support – BUY A MANUAL.

It basically seems to be spraying the water out when it loads the water. Sometimes it only makes partial cubes. The weird thing is the white plastic “finger” that angle up and point away from the ice trays get ice on the ends of them that we have to keep knocking off. I believe that these “fingers” are part of the system that kicks out the frozen cubes.

We checked the line behind the fridge and didn't kink it or damage it at all.

Water runs down the back of the the ice fill tray, so I think that we, hopefully only loosened the connection where the water comes into the freezer. If something actually broke it would have to be a heck of a coincidence that it did it just when we moved the fridge a small amount.

I tried putting a hair dryer on it to find out if some ice might have gotten onto the water feed system, but it didn't do any good.

I've never taken an ice maker off, I can find the leak which is hopefully that we only loosened the connection that was probably not tightened down in the first place.

It's a basic unit that make the half moon cubes.

How would I go about taking the ice maker off so that I can find where the leak and I assume the spray are coming from.

It doesn't look like a tough job, but you can't actually see the water system.

I'd like to here how I need to go about it so that I don't mess up and totally ruin the ice maker. It still makes ice as long as you remember to knock the ice off of the “finger” and I yank the lump of ice out of the back of the ice bucket every know and then. It doesn't get huge. After about a week or so the lump of ice on the back of the ice bucket is just about the perfect size to yank it off and put one big ice chunk in a glass.

I love this site.

BJ

majakdragon · 10-15-2008, 01:59 PM

Although it may be a problem due to moving the unit, it still sounds like an ice maker issue. I think you will get better results by posting in the Appliance section. Good luck.

BJLower · 10-15-2008, 11:29 PM

The saying goes that we learn from our mistakes. I must be Einstien reborn.

Sometimes they aren't that bad. I was sitting in the emergency roomwaiting to get stiched up and the guy next to me had slipped with his cordless drill and jambed it into the palm of his hand. His wife could have been a stand up comedian and had of dying laughing with jokes about why men should not be allowed near any power tools.

sv9779 · 10-25-2008, 12:14 AM

If this icemaker sits on the left side of the freezer then there are 3 screws that hold it in. 2 on top and 1 on the bottom. You need to see if it is leaking or overfilling. The fact that the fingers have ice on them can indicate you're not getting enough water to front of the tray to warm the thermostat. The icemaker will cycle too soon and the water won't be completey frozen. So the fingers get water on them and ice up. If you you're getting too much water then it's probably a bad motor module. At that point you're about 2/3 the price of a new icemaker. Might as well just replace it.
Wait until it fills then turn the icemaker off. let the water freeze for a few hours then take the icmaker out. You'l be able to see how much water it is getting. Or if it is overflowing.

good luck