Whirlpool W10852956 Spring OEM Part

The problem was that the motor coupler & shaft had a tiny bit of rust at their union. With the weight of the ice bin it rusted in the lowest position. This didn't allow the motor coupler to float on the shaft. There is a spring inside the shaft that pushes up on the motor coupler keeping it engaged in the ice bin coupler above. This coupler in turn rotates the auger in the bin to dispense the ice. I removed the motor coupler & shaft, tapped the coupler loose and filed off the rust. This allowed everything to work perfect but since I had purchased a new coupler, spring, seal and washer I replaced them also. Trick to save time: remove the ice bin, push down on the coupler still in the door. It should depress maybe 1/4". If it does check the coupler in the ice bin. If is doesn't, disassemble the coupler/shaft and see if the above happened to you.

When you pressed the ice maker you could hear the motor but it would not crush the ice, I ordered the shaft and teh spring, but it still would not work, we looked at the motor and the spot where the shaft fits was stripped. I ordered the new motor, and that was it. Both types of ice.

When there was no ice in the bin, the auger turned, but with any ice, the auger simply stalled and could not push the ice around. Did not know where the problem was, but thought if I replaced the entire lower assembly (ordered a new motor, shaft, spring and coupler for the bottom part), that should do it. Took about 45 minutes from start to finish, but ice now dispenses fine as cubes or crushed.

There is a hexagonal shaft that connects the ice dispenser motor to an auger/chopper in the ice hopper. The end of the shaft had rounded-off. A new shaft was needed to fix the problem, but I realized that the real problem was that only about 1/8" of the shaft actually engaged the auger coupling at the top end. I needed to raise the shaft a little to make it better engage, so I dropped 4 #6 washers into the motor socket which raised the shaft about another 1/8", giving it about 1/4" engagement into the auger coupling at the top while maintaining about 1/2" engagement into the motor socket at the bottom.

We received our needed parts very quickly. We brought up the exact repair we needed on You Tube posted by ApliancePartsPros (Simon) on our exact Kenmore Freezer. We followed it step by step and his directions were perfect and finished the project fairly quickly - approximately 1 1/2 hours and now are the proud owners of a working ice maker that dispenses ice cubes and crushed ice! Hooray! The whole project cost us less than $150.00. Our one recommendation would be to have a hairdryer handy. We found as we dismantled to get to the auger motor several of our parts were frozen in place and a minute or so with the hairdryer helped to pop them loose. Thanks AppliancePartsPros! Tom and Dee