Wednesday Weekly Stock: Refrigerator Parts

Every week at W.L. May we have several items we feature as good parts to consider adding to your stock. These parts also have special pricing available. For pricing details, ask your account representative for more information. This week we look into the world of refrigerator parts.

FF8.5HBK1

The "heart" of a refrigeration system is the compressor. A compressor is used to compress the gaseous refrigerant. The process of compression raises the temperature of the gas.The gas is then pumped into a condenser coil, where the heat will will transfer off the coils. This week we are featuring a 740BTU 1/4HP R-134 compressor from Embraco. The part number is FF8.5HBK1.

65109

The compressed refrigerant makes the coils hot. To move the hot air away from the coils to allow further heat transfer a fan is used. For many years, and across many models, a 2 watt motor in a cast iron body was used. Packard offers their clockwise universal replacement as part 65109.

WR60X10220

On newer GE refrigerators, a 9 watt c-frame motor is used for the condenser fan motor. The part number for that motor is WR60x10220.

5303918277

Now that we have covered some of the pieces that make it cold, lets put some of that cold to use. On most Electrolux products made since 2001 the same replacement icemaker is called for. Sometimes labeled as part number IM115, we have it in stock under the Electrolux part number 5303918277.

4318047

The icemaker needs water to do its job. That is where the water valve enters the picture. Most modern machines have ice and water through the door. For those machines a dual valve is called for. For refrigerators that do not have ice and water through the door, or has an add-on icemaker, a single coil valve is called for. For Whirlpool refrigerators, the single coil refrigerator valve is part 4318047.

WR02X11330

Back in April we told you about the 5/16 x 5/16 water line connector from GE. It is a size we still get regular calls for. If you would like to stock this part ask your account representative for part number WR02x11330.

4318165

Often, when we get requests for water line couplers, the requester describes the coupler as being'"down near the hinge". Remembering that brings to mind another part located near the hinge. Lower refrigerator door hinges have these little pieces called riser cams or door closers that actually cause the door to raise up and tilt just enough to let gravity help with.

Whirlpool makes a nice kit for their models that includes enough parts to fix the riser cams on both doors. That make sense because if one side is wearing out the other side is likely not far behind. By installing the parts in the kit on both doors you are proactively preventing a possible call back caused by the other doors risers failing. Part number for the kit is 4318165.

WR9X330DS

A symptom of a door not closing properly is frost build up in the freezer. Another cause can be a problem with the defrost system. Older refrigerators would frost up in the freezer and required periodic defrosting to avoid the whole freezer compartment turning into a giant ice cube.  Modern refrigerators avoid that issue with the use of a heater that warms ups periodically to prevent frost build up.

Although many of the newest models control defrost timing using a computer board, older defrost heater were turned on based on a defrost timer that activated the element and then turns it off. There are still a lot of those units around. The GE part WR9x330DS activates the heater for 24 minutes every 6 hours. This style of timer was not only used on GE, HP and RCA refrigerators, but it frequently is a fit in models made by other manufacturers as well.

ML45, ML50, ML55, ML60

As a safety measure and for those times when the heater gets things warm faster than the defrost timer specifies, a defrost thermostat, also known as a defrost terminator, will interrupt the heater. These thermostats are fairly common and fairly universal. Supco offers replacements at a variety of temperature points. The most common range from 45-60 degrees. ML45 is a 45 degree cut out, ML50 cuts out at 50 degrees and so on, with ML55 and ML60 covering 55 and 60 degrees representatively.