Refrigerator Ice Maker woes...

The ice maker in our 14 year old Sears Kenmore side-by-side quit working recently.
Below is a photo of one of these old refrigerators.

I didn't bother doing a lot of troubleshooting.  It was clear that water was not making it to the ice making part.  I was pretty sure there was no reason to order a replacement ice-maker.

Instead, I suspected the water supply valve was not opening.  As it turns out, that was wrong - the valve likely was opening.  However I'm pretty sure that it needed to be replaced anyway.

Today this cute colored valve arrived in the mail.  At the left is the water inlet connection.  The green/blue fitting goes to the water dispenser, and the white/yellow fitting goes to the ice maker.  Electrical connections on the far side power up solenoids to open valves when water is needed for the dispenser or ice maker.

Searspartsdirect.com wanted $85 for this little guy.  I thought that was a bit steep. and I briefly considered buying another refrigerator.  I'm against discarding things that should be repaired, so next I entered the part number into Amazon.  Amazon had something that looked like the same part for $17, which seemed like a much fairer price.  So I ordered he non-Sears part, hoping it would work.

Step one:  Pull the refrigerator away from the wall.
Step two: Vacuum up all the dust bunnies that the cooling fan gathered up under the fridge.

Step three: Remove the cardboard cover that hides the stuff you need to work on.

Below:  The old valve.  I replaced this when we first moved into this house.  Back then it cost "only" $55 from Sears. 

The reason I replaced the valve before is this:  Our previous rental house in Hermiston, OR did not have a large enough opening for this refrigerator, so we stored the refrigerator out in the garage temporarily, without draining the water system... where it froze during winter and split the valve wide open.  When we moved here, and I turned the water on to the refrigerator it sprayed water all over the floor.  Then I had to wait a week for Sears to get the part to us.

Below:  Yep, they look the same.

After I replaced the water supply valve, I turned on the ice maker, but it still wasn't getting any water.  So there was another problem!

Inside the freezer, penetrating the ceiling, is a black rubber tube with a large diameter.  This feeds water from the small plastic tubing into a funnel on top of the ice maker.  It was plugged with ice.

I borrowed my daughter's hair dryer, and ran it until the ice plug melted out.  I suspect the water supply valve was leaking by slightly, allowing a slow drip of water to pass.  This trickle of water froze and blocked the large black tube when it first entered the freezer.  Ice has never formed in this tube before, so something must have caused the ice plug to form.  So it was probably a good idea to replace the valve anyway.

After replacing the valve (and after any plumbing job, really) it's a good idea to put down a dry paper towel.  It's a simple way to tell if you have a minor leak.  I do this under sinks and dishwashers after working on them as well.  It's not fun to find out a long time later that you have major water damage from a tiny leak.

Before pushing the refrigerator back into its hole, I checked the paper towel.
Turned out there *was* a leak, and it was on the ice-maker fitting.

This wasn't a continuous leak though.  It would only leak when water was making up to the ice maker, about every 30 minutes or so.  I just had to re-stuff the ice maker tubing into the valve again to stop the leak.

Interesting fix, interesting complications!