Frigidaire 5303918810 Defrost Thermostat OEM Part

Got the infamous icemaker freezing up problem so common to Frigidaire Gallery and Professional series refrigerators. I was also only getting the "OP" code on the diagnostic test 26, so I determined the defrost heater and/or the thermostat was probably bad. So, I went ahead and replaced both of them, as well as installed the updated air handler housing kit. What I didn't realize from the parts pictures was that the air handler kit was not only updated foam replacements, but it was also a replacement of the housing unit itself. Had to move the fan, crushed ice solenoid, and auger motor from the old unit to the new, but the instructions were very well written and easy to follow. Took a little longer than I expected, but no big deal. Have had ice production as normal for more than a week, so very happy!

I found the real reason why it may not work on YouTube. Then I took my multimeter to test the parts. I found out they were dead. So I replaced the heater and thermostat.

Frigidaire Gallery Refrigerator model FGHB2866PFJA has a known issue with the rear of the ice maker freezing up, causing a no icecube issue. The usual fix is to remove the ice maker, defrost all of the parts and install the Frigidaire ice maker repair kit. I made that change a week ago and the ice maker worked great for 4 days and then froze up again. That pointed to either the thermostat or defrost heater not working. Ordered both of those parts from AppliancePartsPros and removed them. Ice maker is now working perfectly again with no freeze up in over a week.

I ordered a new defrost thermostat and new defrost heater. Two mechanically minded friends did most of the work while I relayed info from the video. They took everything apart as instructed and got to the coils for the ice maker that were frozen. We gently thawed everything in order to remove the heater coils and defrost thermostat. Replacement took a bit as we had to get zip ties from my utility room to reattach the heater coils (part 242094802) around the evaporator. It would have been helpful to have had a video for that aspect, too but we figured it out. When mounting with zip ties they need to be flush in order to get the housing to slide over the coils. They then attached the new defrost thermostat (part 5303918810) and plugged it into the new defrost heater. They put everything back together and when I awoke this morning I had ice.