My Maytag refrigerator is only a few years old. The freezer works great but the refrigerator is at 55 degrees. Set to max cooling. I am not sure if the fan in the freezer is working, otherwise seems normal. Anyone know of some things I should check, I have a voltmeter. It is a MTB2156GE Maytag. Thanks !
when I had this problem, it turned out to be the timer that controls the self-defrost feature. mine was a month. ward refrigerator.
not sure exactly why, but the timer did not function correctly and did not allow the fridge to cool, but freezer worked fine. apparently, the timer activates some heating coils to defrost the fridge at certain periods of the day.
I'm sure others can shed more light on why this occurred.
I took the freezer fan out, disconnected it and measured 115 volts on both leads (to ground), so it is not the fan. A schematic would be nice.
"When my refrigerator did this...."
The passage from the freezer to the refrigerator was iced up so air wasn't getting through. Defrosting took care of it.
OK, so you measured the voltage. That does not mean the fan is turning. Does the fan turn when you put juice to it? That is the important part. I've replaced these fans for just the reason you describe in three different fridges. They have crappy little sleeve bearings that do not last forever.
When this happened to us the solution was simple once SWMBO asked me to look at it. She'd piled so much stuff into the (top) freezer that she almost completely blocked the air openings at the front edge of the bottom of the freezer compartment.
QED
Jeff
"When my refrigerator did this...."
The passage from the freezer to the refrigerator was iced up so air wasn't getting through. Defrosting took care of it.
Turn both control knobs to the middle of the range. You can create this situation by cranking both knobs to max. Trust me on this, I've seen it several times.
Hi, Never test for power to ground. Measure across the 2 leads and if the fan motor is getting 110-120 volts AC across the two wires and the fan is not turning = new fan motor time.
That is part of the full model#.
jeff. Appliance Repair Aid
I have owned five Maytag refrigerators of the same model ( MTB2156GE Maytag). Three out of the five refrigerators have had a failure of the evaporator fan motor (freezer fan). The symptoms (freezer working and refrigerator in the 50s) were the same in all three cases. Maytag has been using different molded Panasonic evaporator fan motors in their top freezer frost free refrigerators for a number of years and I have found out that these motors have a very high failure rate. Upon a recommendation from Jeff at
Yes, and I think the reason, at least on my Generous Electric top freezer fridge, is that the controls on it work this way:
The "Refrigerator" temperature control knob adjusts a real thermostat sensing the temperature in the refrigerator. This thermostat turns the refrigeration compressor and air moving fan on and off, keeping the refrigerator temperature at its set point.
The "Freezer" temperature control knob just moves a damper in the air path coming down from the freezer. When you adjust it for a "colder freezer" it just throttles back the cold air circulated through the refrigerator.
Taken to the limits of absurdity, if that damper could completely block off the air flow, the refrigerator would never get any cool air, so the compressor would run continuously and the freezer would get as cold as the erefrigeration system could make it be.
That blocking off is what happens when the air passage gets iced up, producing the results the OP described. It can also occur as you say if both controls are set to maximum cold and the "freezer" control damper is a little too agressive about throttling the air flow.
Jeff
The guys at my parts house call them "generally expensive". Your descrip is 100% agreement with my understanding of refrigerators.
Saw another one of them today. Woman with a refrigerated "sandwich table" in a restaurant. Not cooling. Suction line frozen and coated with ice. I looked into the box. The evaporator was a block of ice, and the thermostat was set for zero F. Hmm. Well, that might explain it.
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