I've been putting up with water on the floor of my upright (1998) freezer (and Laundry room floor) for some time now.
Having done a repair of a similar problem a while ago on my top-freezer fridge, I thought I pretty much knew the cause. After getting in and seeing the evap. coils iced over and the drain hole solid with ice, I thawed the whole mess and began going through the possible offending parts.
To make a long story short, the defrost timer, thermostat, and def.heater ALL passed tests on my multi-meter. (Yes, I'm aware of the "cold" requirement for correctly testing the thermostat and had put it in my fridge freezer to get it to temp before testing)
Ok, so I left the front panel off, put everything else back together, and put it through a test cycle.
I'd advanced the timer so that it only took about 2.5 hours to get around the the defrost "click".
As soon as the timer clicked, there was another loud click and the freezer shut off completely. No power. I reset the GFCI and advanced the timer manually a couple clicks to the "cool cycle". As soon as I heard that "click" it was again followed by a second click as the GFCI tripped again.
I can handle the mechanical side of all this, but have limited electrical knowledge? Could something be going wrong inside the timer? Or......???
Any help would be much appreciated!