Refrigerators

How to Fix an Ice Maker Ice Jam on a Kenmore Coldspot Model: 59282990 Refrigerator

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Hardware

  • Kenmore Coldspot Model 59282990 Side-by-Side Refrigerator
  • Whirlpool/Kenmore/Maytag/Frigidaire/Magic Chef/Admiral Modular Ice Maker
If your ice maker is not working first make sure that the metal arm on your ice maker is in the down position.  If it’s up, then it’s shut off.  It is there to sense when the pile of ice gets high.  When the pile of ice gets high the arm rests down on it and shuts off until you use up the ice.  If your arm is down and the ice maker is still not working, read on…
This is how to save yourself a $100+ service visit with an easy fix.  If your ice maker has stopped it may be an easy fix to solve.  It may not be easy to see what is wrong, but if you can peek back there you may see what I have pictured below.  I actually used my cell phone and the flash to help me get this picture.  In this situation ice has frozen in the tray in a way that keeps the ejector fingers from making their 1-revolution trip of cleaning out the frozen ice cubes and moving back in their resting place between freezes.  This is what it looked like in my case:
You can see from above that the chunk of ice on the side of the tray is keeping the ejector fingers from rotating up (clockwise) and completing their cycle.  The ice maker will sit in this state until the ice is all used up and you will run out of ice and be drinking hot Coke and no one likes it hot.

In order to repair this you are going to either have to unplug your refrigerator (not an option, right?) or chip off that ice in the way.  Since thawing the freezer is not really an option for most people we’ve got to chip off the ice.  I opted to take a knife and carefully chip away at the ice.  You must be careful to not pry against the plastic fingers of the ejector because you don’t want to break one off.  I’ve been able to fix my ice maker every time it has stopped with this method.  Sometimes you can just rake your fingers across the top of the fingers and the ice cubes have just failed to fully clear.  This is even an easier fix.  Here’s a picture of what it looks like when this kind of jam happens:

Ice cubes stuck at the very end of ejection–just rake your fingers across them to break them free.

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John Mueller
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4 Comments

  • Hi! I can feel a few ice cubes stuck, but they are frozen in place and I can’t get them out (ice maker unit is in the door itself). Can I just do the blow dryer trick from the top?

    Reply

  • This is the first article I’ve seen on Kenmore coldspot. I occasionally have a problem with the ice not dumping. About a month ago, I noticed a big pool of water on the floor and then the icemaker stopped making ice. I poured water into it and it still cycles. The cubes froze and dumped. I used the hair dryer on the water lines in the back, but it still is not getting water.

    Reply

    • I don’t even have that refrigerator anymore. One thing I’ll say is that there is a heating element that keeps the ice maker from freezing up and it sounds like your heating element is bad.

      Reply

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