[wmentrak]

Hi,
My refrigirator stopped working. If I turn the refrigirator on, the cooling fan does come on, but the compressor is quiet after about 20 seconds the overload relay pops off. After few minutes the overload does come back and comes off again. Seems like a cycle. I looked at the starting relay and it is burned out, I did measure resistance on a compressor coil, one is 3.3ohms and another is 6.4ohms. Overload relay is working fine.
My question is : did the relay burned because of the compressor, or is the compressor not working because its a bad relay.

[applianceman]

Often the relay will just go bad in fact most of the time it just the relay. But sometimes the compressor is the cause for the bad relay. Replace the relay and it continues to do the same thing the compressor is bad.
Make sure before you purchase the relay that the compressor is not grounded out. It should be and open circuit (no continuity) between each terminal and ground with the wires unplugged. Be sure to unplug the refrigerator before checking this. Refrigerator repair guide