We have a fridge that almost works and an exasperated local repairman.

Here's our history: On June 2 , our 8 year old Kenmore Elite (side by side) suddenly went warm (about 70 degrees) on the fridge side only. While I'd normally troubleshoot it myself, I am very busy with work so we called a repairman who came the next day. He determined the baffle was not working so he replaced it. While the flow returned a bit, the fridge did not fully cool below about 55 in 24 hours.

He came back the next day and discovered that the part failure had caused a frost build up preventing proper airflow. He defrosted it manually and the fridge dropped within a day to about 40 degrees, right at the spoilage point for our food. Turning up the cold setting to the maximum 7 does not alter the refer temperature and the compressor does cycle on and off.

Our repairman has been very nice, returning 6 or 7 times every few days since trying to figure out why our previously perfectly running fridge now only cools to 40-41 degrees. We bought a good thermometer that he's verified is giving us accurate temperature readings. He's told us the freezer is also running several degrees too warm.

Since replacing the baffle our repairman on subsequent visits:

1. Unplugged and reset the defrost system and moved the defrost thermostat (maybe sensor?) to a new location on the coils, saying this was a factory recommended change.

2. Tapped into the freon system suspecting a leak but found the system normal.

3. Replaced both refer and freezer thermisters.

4. Replaced the main control board.

5. This morning (July 2) he spent 3 hours going through the whole system. Finding nothing new, he replaced a fan (not sure which) with a higher velocity model that he said was a known possible weakness with this model that may have been causing a problem.

He told me he's out of ideas and options if this doesn’t work. Tonight our fridge is running at 42 degrees on a setting of 4 so I just turned it up to 7 hoping to make it through the 4th of July weekend.

Has something obvious been missed? Do we give up and buy a new refrigerator?

Fridge = 40 degrees
Freezer = -8 degrees

Ran all night on the following settings:
Fridge = 7
Freezer = 5

I woke up to it running so it may not be cycling off running on 7.

The lower air return is completely clear. The higher RPM fan installed yesterday may have been the evaporator fan. He told me it was to improve air flow.

I just put the thermometer up in front of the air diffuser on the refrigerator side. After about 10 minutes the thermometer was frosty when I opened the refer door and it read about 20+ degrees.

I moved it to the middle of the second shelf for about another 15 minutes and the thermometer reads 41 degrees.

I'm grateful for any other ideas.

Just noticed your temperature of + 20 degrees at the damper door is too high, should be lower.

The thermometer is mechanical so it may not have reached true temp in 10 my minute or so test. I've returned it to that position for a longer test:

After 30 minutes temperature a couple of inches from damper door is 22 degrees.