How to tell which lines go to which ports

Refrigerator & Freezer Repair
1

Kenmore/Whirlpool:
10659212990:
bad water inlet valve:

I should know better…I didn’t take pictures before disconnecting everything. I have an old Kenmore refrigerator with a triple solenoid water valve. Nothing is color coded - not the wires, connectors etc - at least that I can tell.
I think I know where the 3 electrical connectors go. One has 3/16" terminals and the others are 1/4". I believe the 3/16" is for the ice maker.
My confusion is which tubes go to which ports since I didn’t take pictures :frowning: The incoming water line is easy. And I think the green solenoid marked W1 with the 3/16 terminals is the ice maker. So that leaves me 3 ports, all 5/16", but the tubes coming from fridge are 5/16, 5/16, and 1/4. I have a bunch of adapters so that’s not really a problem but how the heck do I figure out which line goes to which port? They all get bundled together and disappear into the body of the fridge. How do I figure out what line connects to which port? (and i have a multimeter if there’s anything I should be testing regarding the electrical connectors). Thanks in advance…

2

Hi,

Might help.

House water line should come into the one solenoid, up to the filter and back down to the dual valve. 1/4" lines are for the ice maker and the 5/16 lines are for the chilled water. The 3/16" terminals appear to be for the chilled water.

Hope something here helps,

jeff sr.

3

For the tubing, you should be able to go into the refrigerator section where the water reservoir is and gently pull the tubing to see which one has play. The side that has play can be lifted just enough to identify it is shorter back at the valve and this would be the tubing that goes to the water dispenser. It looks like the water dispenser tubing connects in just under a purple solenoid. This should make the tubing easier to place. For wiring, the purple wire and white wire connector that has smaller ports goes onto the purple solenoid, the other purple wire and white wire connector goes to the red solenoid and has larger ports. The tan wire connector will be the last one and connects to the tan solenoid.

4

William - thanks so much - you’re the first person I’ve heard from who knows what they’re talking about. When I remove the front ‘grill’ there are 2 water tubes that come together with a connector. One end leads into the door so I assume it’s the water dispenser but I can’t see where it connects to. I hate to sound too stupid, but even though I had changed the water valve several years ago, I never knew there was a reservoir in the fridge. I’m wondering if the other end of this tubing is coming from the reservoir, feeding the dispenser? If so, do you know where the reservoir for this model is? I also took off the cover for the filter and see that there are 2 water lines - a 1/4 and a 5/16. but I can’t tell where they go? I’m guessing one of these feeds the reservoir (outgoing) and one of them is the incoming water?? Thanks in advance!! Larry

5

The tubing leading to the door would indeed be the dispenser water line and is part number WP4388152 and it goes through the entire door up to the dispenser section. The tubing on the other side of the connector would indeed come from the water reservoir in the bottom of the refrigerator behind the crisper bins. It will look like a coil of 5/16" tubing. As far as the tubing at the filter housing, the only reason I can think of for there being a 1/4" and a 5/16" tubing to be used as the incoming and outgoing tubing would be for presser/volume control with water. Both tubes at the filter would come from/go to the water valve.