Hello there, I have a Maytag RTD1900 refridgerator. The freezer compartment and fridge compartment are not cooling as they should. I believe the evaporate fan located in the freezer compartment is not running causing the evaporator to freeze up. What I want to know is how to access this fan? I will attach a picture of the diagram on the back of my fridge below. Near top of diagram you will see a fan, that is the one I want to access. Thank you.
UPDATE — I removed the freezer door and plastic shell from the floor of the freezer. Was pretty easy to do. And I saw that there was frost built up near the front and the Styrofoam piece on top wouldn’t come up because its probably frozen to the evaporator which I believe is located just beneath it. I’m gonna let it defrost and then remove the Styrofoam piece and see whats going on. I also tested the defrost timer by turning the little screw until it shut off the condenser and fans. Then 18 minutes later it started back up, so the timer might be good. Anyways I will find out whats wrong with this thing and keep the forum posted 
Okay so it defrosted enough so I could remove the piece of styrofoam that sits on top of the evaporator. After removing it, there was ice everywhere (see pics below). Even though the defrost timer started after 18 mins, do you still think it could be faulty and not activating the defrost heater? Any input would be appreciated, thank you.
Okay so all the ice has melted. There was water in the drip tray under the fridge so the drain isn’t clogged…which is good. Anyways I bought a brand new voltmeter to test the continuity and resistance of the defrost timer, but before I attempted that I wanted to have a look at the defrost thermostat. So I released it from the clip and then pulled the wires from each connector (That was a pain in the ass to do, but I got them free). Upon closer inspection of the defrost thermostat, I noticed it was covered with hairline cracks, as you can see in the pics. The last 2 pics is where the thermostat was located, I put the metal clip back so its easier to visualize. I’m just going to keep writing up my progress and hopefully it helps others
UPDATE - I used the Voltmeter I bought on the following 3 components
- Defrost thermostat
- Defrost heating element
- Defrost timer
When I tested the continuity on the defrost thermostat it came back that there WAS continuity which means the thermostat is still working properly (please note that I put the thermostat in my other freezer to get it nice and cold so the circuit would close in order to check continuity)
When I tested the continuity on the heating element it also came back fine, showing there was continuity.
When I tested the defrost timer, there was continuity between 1 and 4 (condenser), and there was continuity between 1 and 2 (heater).
So I’m thinking the motor on the defrost timer might be getting too old to turn the gear and it gets stuck in the fan mode infinitely. Or it could still be the defrost thermostat, even though there was continuity, the thermostat has cracks on the casing.
Therefore I’m going to replace those 2 parts with 2 new parts, install them, start up the fridge and see what happens.
That will be my next update.
Cheers.
Last night I wanted to check the defrost timer motor by giving it some power and seeing how it operates. I got a standard plug cord and cut it. I took the hot wire and wrapped it around terminal 1 on the timer and took the neutral wire and wrapped it around terminal 3. I set the wheel to about 30 mins before it switches over to the defrost mode (the little line on the white part is where it switches over). Then I plugged it in the wall and it started up, I could hear it ticking away. I could hear that the motor was struggling, since the ticking sound was off and not repetitive as it got closer to the defrost cycle. Therefore I opened up the timer and saw that the wheel had some gunk on it, so I cleaned with rubbing alcohol.
Last week, I re-installed all the parts and plugged the fridge in. I advanced the timer so it was about an hour before defrost mode to see if it was operating okay. After an hour the timer clicked into defrost mode. After 5 mins I could feel that heater was working. Then after 18 minutes it kicked out of defrost mode and went back into the cooling period. Therefore the defrost timer, thermostat and heater work perfectly.
…continued from post above…
HOWEVER, after the fridge was running for several hours I was noticing that the fridge started shutting off and turning on every 2 hours. So I check the back lower part of the fridge, condenser fan was running, so that wasn’t the issue. Then I touched the compressor and it was burning hot (ie. overheating causing fridge to shut down). So I did a closer inspection, and as I looked into the condenser coils I could see that they were clogged and filled up with dog hair and dust. Gave them a good cleaning and now everything is running perfectly. Condensor is warm to the touch, and fan blows nice and strong too. Fridge is fixed without spending a dime.
Hi, I have the same fridge model. Has the problem returned with the hot weather lately? I noticed that my refrigerator door gasket is leaking causing moisture and mold growth in between it and the freezer door. I’m feeling that this may be causing a chain reaction leading to the fridge to work harder during the summer. I hope that you could reply to this message to save me time and aggravation having to disassemble the fridge for the third time since I’ve moved in to my home. Thanks
Hey Stephen, my fridge has been running perfectly since my last post. I had to turn up the temp in my fridge because it was too cold and freezing some of the fruits. My refridgerator and freezer doors seal properly. If your fridge door is not sealing/closing properly it will obviously cause the fridge to work harder because it would take a lot longer to reach the set thermostat temp. I wonder if you could buy new door seals and replace them?
Thank you for your quick response. So I understand you correctly, you simply cleaned the condenser coil from hair and it resumed working properly?
[QUOTE=Stephen.B;899357]Thank you for your quick response. So I understand you correctly, you simply cleaned the condenser coil from hair and it resumed working properly?[/QUOTE]
Well the problem with my fridge was 2-fold.
The first being that the defrost timer was not clicking over into defrost mode, causing the ice on the evaporator coil to build up until the bottom of freezer was a slab of ice. This restricted air flow. I fixed this issue by opening up the actual timer and cleaning the gunk that built up on the wheel and spraying it with some silicon. This reduced the friction for the motor to turn the wheel, and now it always goes into defrost mode.
After that was finally fixed, all was working fine and dandy however I noticed the air wasn’t that cold. The problem was that the condenser coil was totally covered in hair and dust, this made the compressor work overtime since coolant wasnt being cooled by the condenser (as it should be). The compressor would get so hot that it would shut off because it was overheating. Once I cleaned that out, everything works perfectly.
Danny, thank you for the detailed feedback. I will open my defrost timer and inspect the mechanical gears.
Here is a video that will help you (see link below). That little wheel was covered in some sticky gunk. The motor didn’t have enough power to turn it into to defrost mode. When you watch the video you will get it Glad I could help.