The ice dispenser door was not closing tightly. As a result, there was frost build up in the ice chute, which also was allowing ambient air and temperature into the freezer compartment. Upon further inspection, there was black “schmutz” on the ice door, and the rubber ice funnel and deflector parts were deteriorating. Because the door was not closing tightly, I also assumed that the door-closing spring was week. The parts I ordered were: ice door assembly, ice funnel, ice deflector, spring and actuator pad. They all arrived 2 days earlier than estimated.
Upon gaining access to the freezer door ice dispenser mechanism and area, I also found that this black “schmutz” was actually wet mold. This mold was hiding on and behind the mechanism assembly; there was also dry mold on the mechanism, which is hazardous to human health. With all these parts removed, and before I installed the new parts, I thoroughly cleaned the freezer door ice dispenser area and the parts being retained.
The videos provided by appliancepartspros.com, which are embedded in most of their parts’ descriptions, were very helpful, showing how to gain access to, and remove and replace, these parts.
Upon testing, after everything was reassembled back into the freezer door, I noticed that the new ice dispenser door was not closing fully. The door was caught under the ice chute lip at the 12-o’clock position as the solenoid was de-energized and the spring was trying to close it. The ice door disk assembly clips onto the actuating arm via a couple of small, delicate, plastic fingers. By design, these little clip fingers allow the door disk assembly to “float” so it will settle into place when closed. To correct this, I fabricated a retaining clip out of a paperclip and installed it into these clip fingers to hold the ice door disk assembly back a little so it would not catch on the ice chute. (For a quicker, easier solution, a wire twist tie, such as one used to close the bag for a loaf of bread, will work just as well.) After final reassembly, the ice dispenser is working perfectly.
Note: the actuator pad I received is black in color. I was not happy with this color, so I cleaned up the original almond-colored pad and reinstalled it.