How to Troubleshoot & Replace Ge AP2071464 / WR51X442 Refrigerator Defrost Heater

Oh boy! We're going to have to come up with $1,000 or more for a new refrigerator. I noticed that the back of the freezer was covered with frost. Had never been that way before so looked at a few on line videos and decided the defrost part of the cycle wasn't working. I found the defrost timer and rotated it into defrost mode thinking that if the timer motor was bad it wouldn't come out of it. About an hour later I heard the compressor start. OK! not a bad timer. We used a hair dryer to thaw out some of the frost and removed the back panel from the freezer side like they did in one video. Took about two hours to thaw out the cooling coil. It was a solid block of ice. Found the defrost element and defrost termination thermostat as described in the video. Was going to use an ohm meter to check for continuity of the termination thermostat and noticed the burned out spot on the defrost heater. Easily found the correct replacement part by just entering the refrigerator model number. Defrost heater kit from AppliancePartsPros.com included the termination switch. Sweet! Part came on Wednesday before Thanksgiving and had the heater installed in about an hour. I had run the refrigerator for the three days waiting for part to arrive but it hadn't frozen the coil too much. Ice cream was as hard as a rock last night. Had to turn the controls up a little. Very satisfied and only cost me about $60.00 shipping included! Wife thinks I'm a hunk. (I always knew that!) 

Replaced it. 

I replaced the defrost heater and the refrigerator is working fine. 

Ordered a new timer and new heaters. When they finally arrived (several days late)!!!! It only took about 15mins to install all parts. It's been working great ever since. 

Replace the burnt out defroster coil. Also replaced timer while we were at it 

Defrost heater 

I replaced the entire defroster assembly 

Ice built up in freezer defrosted, then easily installed defrost heater and defrost timer in case either were faulty. Turns out it was the defrost heater. A little glitch we made for ourselves was that the timer was in defrost mode when unit was turned on post repair, so the refrigerator/freezer would not turn on. Once the defrost mode ended, the unit turned on and has been working great. ~$100 fix for 20 year old unit. My husband did this repair so I'm not certain of the exact tools but they were nothing out of the ordinary. 

Ordered replacement defroster which was plug and play. Now fridge is cooling as new. 

Determined that the defrost heater did not work, so ordered another one and installed it.