I have an old Admiral fridge that iced up last week (drain got clogged). I defrosted it, and it did it again. When defrosting it this time I noticed the heater element was broken, so I tried to tape the crack. Bad idea. After about 5 seconds of burning tape smell, it turned the fridge off and replaced the heating element. Now when i turn it on, it only runs the defroster and the light inside the refrigerator. Everything was running when the freezer was icing up yesterday. What went wrong?

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Unit compartment & system replacement parts for MAYTAG BNT15B4V Ref - Top Mount | AppliancePartsPros.com.


Sounds like you may be stuck in a defrost cycle.
Compressor and fans are off during defrost.
Defrost should last for half an hour if longer you have a problem.
Try forcing it out of defrost by turning the defrost timer cam, i believe yours is mounted under the unit.
If it will not come out of defrost then the timers contacts have probably welded together and it needs replacing.

Also if the heater stays on after the frost is melted off the coils the defrost thermostat needs replacing. It should shut the power off to the heater once the frost is gone.

Here is a good site with basic repair info
http://www.applianceaid.com/frig.html