So my ice maker went out, again. Seems like every two-three years, (it gets a lot of use). My wife insists that the dog MUST have ice water in the summer, because it hot out. I've never seen the dog drink the water until the ice has melted; I think the ice hurts her teeth. But I don't argue. And me, I've never liked my distilled adult beverage neet, so all in all it gets used quite a bit.

So I hit the internet for a new one. Viola, Amazon.com, modular Whirlpool ice maker, $34.99 with free 2 day, universal unit, all the better. Send me that bad boy.

Two days later it's here. Whoop, whoop I gonna slap that baby in and make some ice. What no harness? So it dawns on me what universal means in the world of ice makers. It means that you have to use old harness because their not going to send all the possible harness. Ok, except last time I put in an old style I/M with a hardwired harness.

I'm still not daunted. I'm a Millwright (Sawmill mechanic), I can do wiring, and electrical and all that finesse stuff, when I'm not hammering on equipment.

I make a quick trip to the used appliance guy for the end at the module. He gives it to me free gratis. Back home I do a little Googling and find another guy that had the same problem: old style I/M to new style I/M and no harness. He contacted a "Expert" tech for hire, and gets the wire color info ,old black to new black, old yellow to new white etc., sweet!

Wire strippers, shrink wrap, soldering gun, and 15 min I got a harness.

Ice maker in, I jumper T and H to initiate the harvest cycle, and the water runs. What the heck?! Shoot, I wrote the color assignments down wrong. I double checked, no just like it says.

Now I'm curious, so I continue reading the back and forth between the "Expert" and the guy with the ice maker. He had the same results as I did, the water runs when T and H jumpered. The back and forth between these two took days (maybe a week). "Check the resistance between here and here", "Make sure this, and check that". The guy finally gave up and bought a new ice maker.

Here's my takeaways on all this:

Don't rely on experts if you can figure it out yourself. You'll feel better about your repair. I understand not everyone has that knowledge. In my case I could have, but I'm a Millwright, and break time is always bearing down on me.:D

There are certain conventions in wiring; red, or black normally are L1, white is neutral, green or green and yellow, is ground. Other colors, like say brown, or blue are used to fire the water valve. Brown never goes to white.