Thanks for the p/n. $146

In the mean time, anyone familiar with the diagnostics. The water filter and power button for 3 sec's aren't doing it.

Hey mch28,

Did you ever figure out what was wrong with your KitchenAid? I've got the same model (2-1/2 years old) and same problem. I also have the diagnostics sheet you were looking for. I ran the diagnostics and everything checked out. This has me somewhat puzzled but I'm still hoping it's the bi-metal (cheap) and not the control assly. (expensive). I'm thinking that my bi-metal might be stuck closed. After reading the diagnostics sheet, it sounds like this could throw off the electronic defrost cycle. The problem first occurred about a month ago when I noticed the refrig. side getting too warm. The freezer was OK but there was frost on the back wall. We have alot of power outages where I live so I figured the electronics might just need to be reset. After turning it off and unplugging the power cord, I powered it back up and the defrost cycle worked fine (until now). Anyway, if you succeeded in getting yours fixed and can share that info, I'd greatly appreciate it.

The only manual defrost procedures I found on applianceaid.com were for units with a mechanical defrost timer. My unit is electronic. The diagnostics instruction sheet does have a procedure for checking the defrost heater/bi-metal, which checked out ok. Since there's nothing in the literature about a traditional defrost timer, I'm assuming it's built into the electronic control board. Please let me know if I missed something. Thanks richappy.

Thanks richappy, I found it. In the meantime, I went and bought a defrost bi-metal. Before installing it, however, I took everything out of the freezer side, removed back panel, defrosted evaporator with a hair dryer, reassembled, then powered the unit up. As expected, everything worked. Refrig. side returned to normal temp. (appx. 35 F.). I decided to just observe it for a few days and appx. 30 hours later, discovered that the unit was going through a normal defrost cycle. This suggested that the bi-metal and/or control board might not be defective after all. My questions now are as follows:

1.) Is it possible for the bi-metal to have stuck open, then snapped back closed after the hair dryer session?

2.) How often does the defrost cycle operate?