I have a '99 Kenmore side-by-side that has been acting up. It was confusing at first because it did get cold, just not all the way, and would have warming cycles. Other times it would work fine, and with nothing in it and us playing with the controls, would merrily run the fresh food side down to 36. If I turn it off for a while, it starts up fine. But after a while, the compressor's not running and it needed to be turned off for a while.

Thanks to info here an elsewhere, I went through the check list. The (manual) defrost timer is working properly. The coils weren't bad but got seriously cleaned with a coil brush and a few bursts from the air compressor :rolleyes:. I then moved on to the compressor, checked it and it appeared to check out (2.8 ohms, 3.7 ohms, 6.5 ohms, nothing grounded) and the one thing I couldn't check was the solid state relay, so I ordered one of those.

Sadly, replacing the relay was not the ticket. So scratching my head I rechecked the compressor, which was hot but read as before, and I even pulled the starter cap and found it was well within tolerance. Messed with it some more, cooled it down with a damp cloth (unplugged!), and realized it was on a try-to-start 5 sec, do-nothing 60 second cycle, (which is why it got hot.)

In the process, I realized that I couldn't hear the evaporator fan, though I had heard it previously. So I pulled the back panel, and sure enough, the evaporator fan was sitting there doing nothing. And (like a PC fan) once I gave it a kick, it spun right up. Dying fan, erratic. I checked it out and was surprised to see there was a -lot- of play at the fan end axle, like 1/4" or such. Is that right?

So now the question I'm hoping you'll weigh in on - can the evaporator fan (or lack thereof) be the cause of the compressor overheating? Or is it more likely to be the compressor bearings going? And is the end of the fan shaft supposed to have that much play?!

After all the work I did on the second pass, I turned it on and realized I could do a sort of evap fan 'test'. I set the dials to max cold to keep the fan running, and buttoned it up. It's been running for an hour straight now, which seems to suggest the compressor is functional. On the other hand, the compressor hasn't had to restart either yet, and bad bearings in motion tend to stay in motion. But in many 'failed evaporator fan' pictures the evap coils are frozen into a solid block, which meant the compressor continued to function well after airflow was basically gone.

So getting mixed signals on this one and don't want to sink the money into a new evaporator fan if the unit is fundamentally walking dead. Any guidance you could provide would be much appreciated.

Quick [very!] late night followup. I just checked on the unit and it's been running fine now for 4.5 hours straight, and the interior temp has dropped about ~20 degrees on the fridge side. I'm all but certain that it's been in continuous operation since I dialed everything up to max.

I don't know if the evaporator is only partially frozen or not? I'll have to pull the back panel to check that. What kind of amps would a 'working' bad compressor pull?

Sorry, should have said something. Yes the condenser fan is clean and running fine.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Ok so after running for many hours, it went back into it's failure mode and yes, the evap fan had stopped running and so had the compressor, and if we sat there and waited, I could hear it cycling, trying to turn on and failing, and it's probably been stuck like that for 10 hours.[/COLOR]
Are you sure that it was the compressor trying to start or was it the defrost timer in the control panel clicking?

[COLOR="DarkRed"]So I pulled the freezer plate and bumped the fan to get it running, and the coils after it had stopped running for hours looked like this. (attached.) BTW, what's the sensor at the end of the evaporator run for[/COLOR]?
Hard to use the coils for diagnosis as the unit was off for a long time.
Did the fan start up as soon as you bumped it?
And was the compressor trying to start?

The sensor is a defrost thermostat.
A defrost cycle is started on a set time basis and has a set duration time, usually about 30 minutes. But lets say that all the frost/ice is melted off the coils in 15 minutes then the defrost thermostat opens killing power to the heater so that unnecessary extra heat is not introduced into the freezer.
The thermostat opens just above freezing.

As a test of the evap theory, I grabbed the hair dryer and hit the coils, figuring in a few minutes if that was it it might unfreeze. Was surprised that the compressor started up in -30 seconds- of the hair dryer hitting the evaporator. So I turned it up to max, sealed it up, and it's been running for hours again. I don't get it.
I also do not understand this.
Could be that it was just a coincidence and the unit came out of a defrost cycle.
Perhaps richappy has somme ideas on this, I hope.

Here are a couple good sites with fridge repair info.
http://www.applianceaid.com/frig.html
Appliance Repair Guide: How To Fix a Refrigerator - ACME HOW TO.com

Just for anyone else in the same spot, eventually I came up with my own answer. Actually yes, the failed evaporator fan was enough to cause the compressor to overheat. An on the edge fan like that will often start up with a bump, and so for many days now, I have just been checking for the fridge warming up, and if it is, rapping the back of the freezer compartment a couple times 'til I hear it start up again.

That's all it takes and the fridge works fine. Been working for days now, so I will be replacing the fan.

Thanks for the input folks.