The new fan motor arrived "next day" which was excellent. For the past couple days we were keeping our refrigerated items in a cooler which is a pain. When you pull the milk out and everything collapses into its spot you spend several minutes just trying to put the milk back in so we did NOT want to wait to get the fridge fixed.
I had to remove about 16 screws out of the sides and back of the freezer (including removing the ice-maker which only had two screws holding it on.) That revealed the fan which was indeed not working. Here is where I had the most difficulty. There are three wires on the unit. One was the ground wire which was easy to pull off, but the disconnects for the other two wires were encased in a U shaped plastic piece. Pulling the plastic piece ended up ripping the disconnects off the old fan motor leaving them still stuck in the plastic U.
It took me several minutes to get the old parts out. I had to push the wires through the plastic U so the connectors were completely exposed, then discovered I had to use something with a sharp point and press through a tiny hole in the middle of the connector while pulling them apart before they would release. That little hole actually locks the pieces together with a little flap of metal. They should have put holes in the plastic U to make the job MUCH easier and to prevent damage to the motor connectors.
The new motor came with new male ends and some heat shrink tubing but I did not need either. The old connectors were still good. I had to pull the wires back into the plastic U and reconnect them. One caution, I had to bend the little locking flap back in on one connector before it would lock onto the new fan. Do yourself a favor and get it locked on BEFORE pulling the wires back into the U (assuming your fridge is the same as my Frigidaire). If you don't do that, you risk having a loose wire that may arc and go bad or you may be pulling the connector back off (like me) to fix the little flap, risking damage to your new motor.
The final problem I had was that there was a lot of "snow" on the top of the coils. I used a heat gun to melt the stuff from the top but I could not see the bottom of the coils because I saw no need to take that extra panel off. Big mistake. All it did was cause the snow to melt from the top, run down a ways and form a BLOCK of ICE further down. I started the freezer up without checking and the next day I was removing that "extra panel" because no air could get through the ice. It took me a few hours to melt all the ice off this time plus an extra day having to use the cooler.
Happily it is now running great! I hope this helps someone else do the job better/easier. It is an easy job to do if you watch for those pitfalls and it will save you a ton of money over paying a professional.I have never worked on a fridge prior to today.
After doing some research on why my fridge wasn't getting cold I unplugged the fridge, removed the back panel inside the freezer and removed the shelves and brackets to access the old fan. As i suspected from my research the fan had burned out which seems to be a common occurrence. I ordered this replacement evaporator motor on Amazon for a 5 year old Frigidaire Model # FRS26LF7DSB. The price ($26.00) was less than half of what it would have cost ($60.00) on other "replacement parts" websites. I ordered the item on a Monday at 4:55 PM and had it sent overnight for an extra $20 = total of $46.00. The part arrived by 3PM on Tuesday and it took no more than 15 minutes to install. The old motor had wire connectors that could be pulled off. Once this was completed I removed the fan blade and the old motor from the motor housing and inserted the new motor and attached the fan blade. Total time thus far under 5 minutes. The new motor has the same wire connectors as the old one so I just reconnected the wires and put the housing back in the freezer and gave her a try. As soon as I plugged in the refrigerator the motor/fan came on right away. I then unplugged the fridge. Reattached the back panel and shelving brackets/shelves and was done. Total time was under 15 minutes.
If you have the same problem it is an easy and inexpensive fix.
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I've never replaced an evaporator motor before, but was very pleased to find the part I needed available for Prime shipping, and with a corroborating reviewer who stated that this was great because it had all the necessary connectors to just snap in the new motor. Well, not so about the one I received. It in fact came with no wires at all (though it did come with something which might be splicing caps, though I truly don't know what they are). I cannot even test it to see if it works.In fairness -it is exactly as pictured, with no wires attached, just not as another reviewer described. It is totally useless to me.
Read Best Reviews of Evaporator Motor for Frigidaire 5304445861, 240369701, 5303918549 Here
Product showed up on time. This motor matched my fridge exactly and I could just un plug the bad motor and plug this one in. I purchased a replacement motor from a local dealer but to install it, I would have to splice wires on the connector side and on the motor side. This eliminated all if that.I installed this n about 10 minutes and it has been working flawlessly for a month. I hope it will be at least 10 years before I need another.
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This is my second time replacing this motor hopefully this one will last longer than the last one I purchased (lasted 13 months).This is a different make than the previous fan I purchased so we will see. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is because I am gun shy after the last replacement motor I purchased.
It is plug and play and extremely easy to change.
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