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Need ice maker help

1K views 28 replies 10 participants last post by  Steamguy 
#1 ·
Our fridge is a Maytag MSS25C4MGZ00.
A couple weeks ago the ice maker quit working. The water dispenser works fine, so plenty of water pressure and flow I would guess. Tried turning it off for a couple days then back on, still doesn’t work.
I can hear it trying to work- the solenoid buzzes to let in water, the tray flips around, etc… but no ice.
Last weekend we emptied the freezer and left the door open for several hours. Turned it back on and it worked immediately. Success! For about 8 hours. Then it started acting up again reverting to the same behavior of going through the motions but not making ice.
Today I replaced the water filter and bled out the air from the water dispenser, still no joy. I’m wondering if the line or solenoid is freezing up or something. If so, why did it work for several hours before quitting?
 
#2 ·
If it’s not dispensing water to the cube tray, I’d suspect the water valve or electronic system that control the valve.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Have I checked it? Why, yes. Yes I have. It was a decent starting point. Which was how I arrived at the conclusion it could be the water filter. That was actually the first thing I read about, but I dismissed it as crazy because there was plenty of water pressure and flow from the dispenser, which shared the same filter. It also says to power cycle it. And defrost/power cycle it, which I did but with only limited success. It also said to ensure that the water line isn’t kinked. See notes above. It also said to ensure that the water supply valve to the supply line is turned on. It also said to ensure the freezer is cold enough. Yup. Again see above notes.
You guys do have me wondering if it’s too cold and not level enough. Possibly yes to both. I know it isn’t level so the doors self close, but maybe it’s just tipped back too much. Maybe it isn’t working because house is 3 years into settling and it finally said I’m tipped too far now? Although it is only on the “medium” temperature setting where it has been for the 3 years we’ve had it. Maybe I should see about sticking a thermometer in there.
 
#7 ·
No sir. I hear the water valve opening very clearly. It sounds like a solenoid type valve that buzzes fairly loud. When it worked after defrosting a few hours, I could still hear it buzzing just as loud, but I could also hear water flowing through it. The ice has always looked normal (another thing the manual said to look for was hollow or undersized cubes, but we had none of that.
 
#9 ·
I had a fridge that was just the opposite. It would make ice, no problem filling the trays, but the water dispenser would freeze up and unless I left the door open and let the line thaw it stayed froze. Wonder if you have a bit of a clog (lime?) in the inlet slowing down the flow or preventing totaly drainage when inlet is open?
 
#11 ·
Timer circuit board would be my first suspect.
 
#12 ·
I think I’m making some progress.
I took the cover/liner off so I could get a better view of how this thing works. I wondered how they operate without freezing up, which apparently is exactly what’s happening. A small part of me is actually wondering if the old filter indeed was the problem. Possible there was a lack of water pressure/flow to push out the little bit of frozen stuff from the valve maybe? So it was already frozen over when I changed the filter a few days ago, even though we do use the water dispenser quite a bit. Also still possible something changed and it’s running colder for whatever reason. I still don’t have a thermometer to test that…

I hit the opening where the water comes out into the tray with a heat gun and turned it back on. It dispensed the water into the tray immediately. We’ll see if it continues to work I guess.

If not, when I had it apart I could see where the cold air that cools the freezer enters and washes over the ice maker. There looked to be a pretty good size flow pathway for the cold air to leak into the area where the nozzle and valve are. Pretty easy to insulate/guard the valve and nozzle with a few pieces of tape. The unit kind of “self levels” the tray. If indeed the fridge did settle and thus the tray is at a different angle compared to the cold air discharge so the cold air could be hitting the valve more directly.
 
#13 ·
If you need the electrical schematics they are found folded up under the top hinge cover on the door(s). I used these to troubleshoot my fridge issue which did turn out to be the circuit board in the rear by the coils. $76 later I was back in business. My problem was a no ice making condition and the front digital readout was bad, for reference what I had.
 
#14 ·
the ice maker water valve is usually right down by the floor! the tube stays full up to the point where it dumps into the tray! if the tube doesn't have enough slope to empty all the way back to a warmer spot it will freeze in the tube! I would just set it one notch warmer and check in a couple days if the ice creams too soft!
 
#15 ·
Well, it worked for almost exactly 24 hours. I happened to hear the last batch drop and it was pretty loud. Not sure why, but it seems to be iced up again. The nozzle itself was clear when I heated it last night, so must be the very top part of the tube that fills it, just behind the nozzle where I can’t see much.

With the fridge leaning back like it is so the doors stay closed better, the tray fill nozzle is actually sloped steeper than it would be if completely level. I did try a different temperature setting, but still without a thermometer I don’t know if it was warmer or colder. I might try leveling it and applying some tape to block cold air that blows past the tray toward the nozzle. I really don’t care if one or the other of those tricks fixes it as long as it works. At least I know now I don’t have to completely empty it to defrost whatever is freezing up.
 
#16 ·
#17 ·
Not sure about you fridge/ice maker but mine did the same thing. If you take the cover off, there are hole where you can put jumper wire in to test it. Mine wasn't making ice either and by testing with jumper it turned out the ice maker itself was bad. This was after replaced solenoid valve and still didn't work. I googled make and model testing procedure for mine. Hopefully you can do the same.
 
#18 ·
So I took the shroud off again and thawed it out again. Pretty good amount of water dripped out of the nozzle. My next line of defense is to try this bit of insulation and tape to attempt to keep some of the cold air out away from the valve.
I dug out an indoor/outdoor thermometer I forgot I had and put the probe into the freezer. It’s still cooling from room temperature but at least I’ll have an idea where it’s at. I’ve seen that thermometer register -10 F outside temperature so it should register whatever the freezer is capable of.
 

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#20 ·
USDA says 0° F. for proper food safety.

Hey, Ariens, you should go buy a lottery ticket. this is #20 in this thread, and post #2.220 for me!
 
#21 ·
It’s been several days now and it’s still working. I did turn up the temperature a bit. Not sure if that’s what fixed it or if it was my cobbled up baffle. Not sure why the temperature would have something to do with it because we haven’t touched it in the 3 years we’ve had it. Not really positive why it quit in the first place all of a sudden. Maybe it was the filter and I needed to thaw it out again before it would work. I monitored the air temperature only which I know isn’t the right way. It bounced around between -4F & +28F that I saw (probably got warmer on occasion because frost free). However the bacon I defrosted this morning was rock hard and the ice cream I just finished was good and firm. I guess that’s as good an indicator of anything.
I’m going to sneak the temperature down a notch and keep an eye on it.
Thanks everyone!
 
#22 ·
that's great you got it working, ice maker is one of those things you don't think about or appreciate until it's not working!kind of like a garage door opener!
running out of ice is a not a good thing when your entertaining and someone has to run out and get some! I have an inglis fridge that's likely 15yrs old and it was the least expensive fridge I could find with ice and water in door and it's been great , wife uses a lot of ice, she constantly has a glass of ice and sparkling water on the go!The neighbours always come here for ice when they run out because they know we have lots! OKay, I probably just jinxed it like my 31yr. old heatpump I was bragging about just quit, I was going to replace it at the end of this heating season, but it fell 2 months shy!
 
#23 ·
It took me a week or three to get around to looking at it because I don’t use it much so I didn’t notice that it wasn’t making ice.
Like donmac it was close to the cheapest appliance package we could find. I figured anything from a $1500 to $4500 fridge was really about the same quality and anything over $5k would be starting to get to the commercial grade that might go a bit longer. I think our whole appliance package (fridge, dishwasher, microwave, stove) was only like $4500 delivered/installed in late 2019. So what that our fridge doesn’t have WiFi or a clear door or a TV built in?
The only thing we find lacking power is that the microwave is gutless. Takes a long time to heat stuff up. Everything else we’ve been really happy with.
 
#24 ·
I think my inglis was about $800 and I've has those $750 panasonic invertor microwaves and nothing but problems,last over the range microwave somebody brought back from florida for me was $150 [goldstar} outlasted the panasonics 3 times over!
I might be out of touch but when I see fridges at $5K and ovens as high as $16K I'm thinking skip the dishs looks pretty good!
 
#29 ·
A big THANK YOU for getting back to the thread and giving it closure.

Not to contribute to thread drift, but I'd scanned through the above, and some comments on home vs. commercial fridges (coolers).

I had to specify a new cooler for our church's kitchen - everything in it is commercial-grade as it's busy most every night of the week, with providing meals for homeless folks, and so on. This particular church has been there for a hundred years, and when I was Property Guy on Council, I often said that we needed to get the PBS people in to shoot a series: "This Old Church", as there always seemed to be something needing attention in the wonderful old buildings.

So, the big Social Hall fridge failed. One fella suggested looking into a 'Sub-Zero' fridge, which I did, to compare it with locally-available (and serviceable!) commercial-grade coolers. This consumer unit, with what we needed, was TWICE what a commercial cooler would cost, at about $16,000. Yow!

We ended up going with Beverage-Air, they are Made In USA, all stainless inside and out, longer guarantee than consumer units. True-Cool was the other choice; those are the "pretty" ones you see at the ends of the checkout lanes at the grocery store, but our volunteer professionals did not have good things to say about the exterior handle arrangement on the True, which would have been difficult to keep sanitary, plus they didn't like all that plastic inside. "Pretty, but not durable in the long run." The Bev-Air isn't as quiet as a consumer unit, but one grill to remove for servicing, versus a half hour of disassembly for some others. Also, separate refrigeration units for the cooler and the freezer sides, with a small LED display to show the internal temp. From standing with all doors wide open for ten-fifteen minutes for loading, to safe temperature (36° fridge, -2° freezer) takes less than five minutes, consistently.
 
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