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Yes. This did indeed fix the issue. :)
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Hey denman,
I'll post this solution for those who come across this issue in the future and find this post while searching.
What ended up being the culprit was a bad solder on the control board itself from the manufacturer of the board. After identifying that the heat element itself was good (with an ohm meter, I was able to find that it had 21 ohms of resistance when just plugged into the meter and nothing else on either end), I turned to the thermostat itself thinking it had gone bad somehow. I snipped the wires and dropped it into a glass of ice water until the temperature dropped enough for it to freeze (this took a while for obvious reasons). The thermostat was fine.
I then pulled the control board out from behind the back of the fridge (very lower-left corner, in a white plastic box, if you're looking at the fridge from behind) and discovered that a solder point on one of the relays (the three big black boxes on the control board) had burned off and melted the solder, breaking its connection.
It was cleaned with sandpaper and solder was reapplied to it (as well as a few other weak looking solder points around the board). I spliced the thermostat back in and plugged the control board back in to the fridge. After plugging it back in, I put the fridge into test mode (unplug from wall. set fridge to 'off' with the dial inside the fridge. plug fridge back in. move dial to '2' to test the heater) and waited for the heating element to heat up. After about 10 seconds, it was very hot to the touch and, I assume, working properly.
It's now chilling down for the first time in a few days. I'll update again once I figure out for sure if this works and everything is cycling properly.
Op will deliver.
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Here are your parts Parts for Whirlpool GS5SHAXTL01 Refrigerator - AppliancePartsPros.comSee the attachment for the tech sheet. It has the procedure for forcing a defrost cycle. When forcing a defrost cyle: If the heater comes on then it is probably a control board problem. If the heater does not come on. Unplug the unit and check the heater resistance, should be about 20 to 30 ohms. Check the defrost thermostat, it should be 0 ohms when frozen. Note that it opens just above freezing. Also should be about 56,000 ohms when not frozen (open). If it is deformed/bulged, replace it even if it does measure OK. With the unit unplugged and the defrost thermostat frozen check the defrost cuircuit at the control boear (P1-3 to P1-4), should read the same as your heater resistance. If yes then odds are that the control board is bad.
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And by testing the heater coil, I mean the wires coming out of the wiring harness which connect to either end of the heater coil.
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I've tested the voltage on the heater coil and found it to be 68 volts, which I find exceptionally odd. For those who know - does that give any clues about what may be wrong and why it doesn't put itself through defrost cycles?
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Hi there -
As the subject says, I'm having freezer coil issues where they keep icing up. It seems once a week or so I'm ripping the cover off of the coils and hitting them with a hair dryer. I've finally moved everything out of the unit (food-wise) so I can root-cause the issue but nothing is standing out other than it doesn't appear to be defrosting like it should.
Does anyone know how to force a defrost cycle on this type of unit?
Thanks!
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