First of all, thanks for the great post on how to make this repair. Doing it myself saved me a ton of money.
Everything went exactly according to the steps outlined in your post, but I did run into a couple of small issues which I'd like to pass along, just in case anyone else has to deal with the same problems.
- On my refrigerator, the back panel looks exactly like the one in the pictures. Everything went fine until I started trying to remove the panel. I had removed the 3 screws and released the clips on both sides, working from the bottom up. However, the panel refused to come off. I'm not sure if it was frozen in place or what, but I couldn't budge it. When the styrofoam insulation began stressing I gave up and let the refrigerator sit overnight. The next morning I tried again and it popped right out. Not sure why, but if you run into this problem I'd recommend giving it some time and going at it again.
- I was amazed at how long the ice took to break up. I must have run hot water over it for close to an hour. I used a turkey baster as recommended, put some hot water on the ice, let it sit for about a minute, removed it with the baster and replaced it with more hot water. I also was running a blowdryer over the area during this time. Just when I was beginning to wonder if I had another issue it finally broke free. Just be aware of how long the process can take.
- Finally, when I went to remove the old clip i was surprised to see it was secured with a pop rivet. It's in a kind of delicate area and I didn't want to put too much pressure on the defrost heater line, so I grabbed the old clip with a pair of Channellock pliers to stabilize it and gently drilled out the rivet.
Other than that everything went exactly as described in the post. Nothing I described was a major problem, I'm just posting them so others might know to expect some small issues. I probably worked on it for a total of 1 1/2-2 hours, most of which was spent melting the ice. Overall, my refrigerator was out of commission for about 24 hours.