KitchenAid 5 Door Refrigerator Evaporator Fan Motor Replacement W11087438 

First, I’d like to say thank you very much for the video. It was highly informative and helped me repair my refrigerator. Second, you DO NOT need to remove the doors to perform this repair. I just completed my repair this evening and probably cut the repair time in half by skipping about half the steps. Skip ahead to the step of removing the shelves (1:40) and continue all the way through the step of removing the drawer bins (2:30) and DO NOT remove the drawer fronts. Skip ahead to 3:05 and remove the wire harness cover, unclip the harness, and remove the crisper drawer support panel (3:30). DO NOT remove the vertical frame mullion or any of the pieces after 3:30. Skip ahead to 4:30 and remove the water filter cover and unclip the wire harness. Remove the air tower and 4 screws for the evaporator cover. This is where it gets slightly tricky. The evaporator cover can’t be pulled out towards you like the video because you didn’t remove half of the pieces in the fridge. The evaporator cover CAN be lifted upward to remove it though. The left side wants to hang up because of the shape of it so as you’re lifting you need to work it a little bit. It helped me by rotating it about 30 degrees to the right and kind of bending it a little bit outward on the left side as I lifted it up. You have to get it past the notch on the left side that is preventing it from lifting straight up. Once you get that cover off then it’s all downhill from there. Swap the fan motor part out like the video and then put it all back together. Remember to put the cover back on at about a 30 degree angle to fit it back in around the notch on the left side. It took me longer emptying the fridge, cleaning all of the shelves, purging crap that I’ve been keeping and putting it all back in than it did actually doing the repair. Note: it took a good 10 minutes for the fridge to kick back in and start cooling again. So be patient after you turn it back on for it to start working again.

I bought the fan online and found a local repair man to replace it. Unfortunately, he had an emergency and left halfway through disassembling the fridge! FORTUNATELY, I had watched this video beforehand and it walked me through step by step to a successful completion. Recommendations: List the equipment needed for the repair at the beginning of the video. Also, I'd recommend cleaning the interior pieces while the fridge is disassembled. Mine looks brand new! Enormous thanks to the makes of this video!!

I followed this video step by step and got the job done. No more loud and annoying humming noise coming from the upper back of the fridge. Although it took me 4 hours to do the job, I'm glad that I did. It saved me a lot of $$$ and felt confident to do the next job, which is the ice maker. Please note that due to variations within the model, some do not require you to remove the doors. Unfortunately, mine isn't of those. Not only the doors, but I also need to remove the Icemaker in order to remove the air tower. Otherwise, I probably need to cut out a tiny piece at the end of the ice maker in order to remove the air tower. Anyway, it was a great video. Hope that you a video when I need to fix things around the house. Thanks

Excellent video!!! Meticulously detailed and helped me repair my noisy fridge.

This video was so helpful in figuring out how to actually get to the fan. In case it helps anyone else, our problem ended up being the wire (brown) going to the VCC (pin 3) on the control panel side of the 8-pin molex connector had corroded and broken. We direct connected the wire on the outside of the molex and the fan started working. Hallelujah!

Incredibly helpful, thank you!

Holy $hit!!!! What were the engineers smoking when they designed this thing. I would highly suggest you also replace the evaporator thermistor while you are this deep into the unit, since this unit has had issues with the evaporator icing up due to bad thermistors. Thank you for this video.

Awesome and incredibly helpful video. Fixed my problem and saved me about $900 to $1100 technician repair. Also in many cases the tech isn't replacing the right part. This got to the root of the issue and fixed it. Cost me less than $200 for the parts and about 4-6 hours time. If you pause the video right at 8:28 you will see the area behind the plastic that was frozen due to the evaporator fan or damper control assembly or both failing. See my replies to other comments on this video for more details on root causes and symptoms. I used a floor heater and blow dryer to melt the ice enough to carefully break it apart with a screw driver. It took about 20 minutes of blow drying but is was worth it. And now the frig is working great! Cleaned it up like new while it was apart and couldn't be happier with the result. This video made it super easy! Thanks again!!!

Thank you! Saved me 2k!

First class video. very good! Thanks for making this.

This also works for WRX986SIHZ whirlpool fridge. As mentioned above, you don't have to pull the drawer system out to get to the part. But I found I had to pull the ice maker to get the vent tower out. It seems to have to pull up and I couldn't do it with the ice maker in the way. I didn't remove it, so I didn't disconnect anything, I just pulled the 2 bolts so I could pull it forward and then was able to pull the vent tower out. My evaporator was frozen up solid. I took a hair dryer running on cool and set up stuff so it would blow on different parts of the evaporator while the doors were closed. This took a while but thawed it while it was plugged in, so I didn't lose the freezer section. Kept it about 55 degrees the whole time. Probably finished thawing in about 4 hours, moving the hair dryer every 20 or 30 min to point at a different section. I also discovered previous versions had a separate plug for just the evap fan, instead of it being a whole sensor package and fan. It is a standard 92mm x 25mm case fan from a computer. But it has to put out just under 60cfm. if you look at the amp rating that will make sure you get a similar fan. .17 amps is the one I pulled out. I had a spare 120mm fan, closed it up and set it over the hole and fridge is at 37 degrees again. Waiting on the new fan and connectors to come in. My plan is to put in molex connectors, so when this happens again, I can just unplug and plug in a new fan for 20 bucks instead of 80 for the whole harness and sensors.

Thank you for the great video. Fixed my problem and east to follow

All you need to do is move the tray disconnect the wire on the left side pull the tray and that peace that covers the evaporator come itself out without touching nothing else, I can't believe that they did all that extra work.

Thank you for this video! I have the same fridge, but I believe a different problem (maybe 2). I get frost build up around the icemaker to door gasket. Any thoughts on that? Also, if I remove the icemaker and thaw it out, then re-install it, I will get 1 batch of ice. After that, it tries to make ice (can hear the water valve opening), but no water goes into the ice tray. Related issue? I'm assuming the water line is freezing up. Thanks for any suggestions!

Does this fan ever turn off? Does it have a thermostat? I've noticed it off but does turn back on just don't know if it doesn't supposed to turn off any advice would be helpful Thank you!!

What would it be for the door light switch to be blinking when the doors are close and I did test all switch for continuity and they seems to be good

Can i replace with more powerful fan ?

Boss Video! Thx!

Is the fan supposed to be running when you have the doors open? Mine wasn't. It spun freely but didn't catch on and spin on its own like can happen with a weak fan motor. Down by the crispers, the area was cold, or colder than the rest of the fridge. Up high around all the shelving, the fridge was warm. It registered 47 degrees f. The evaporator was heavily frosted. crystalized pretty thick but not iced-over, so it didn't seem to be an iced or blocked drain issue. The damper motor spade connector was very corroded as was the outside of the motor itself (rusty). The freezer was at 19 degrees F. Very few ice cubes were being made by the ice maker. If the fan motor doesn't necessarily have to be running regardless of whether the doors are open or not, how do you test it with a multimeter? It has a four-slot connector. Thanks for any insight.

In the process of doing this replacement I noticed the grey tape on the evaporator coils (6:22) looks to be melted. Globs of grey adhesive had dripped onto the evaporator blades below. The tape looks adhered to the tubes and the tubes can be seen through the tape since I think it's just the thin grey plastic at this point. I cleaned up the grey globs and finished the fan replacement. I replaced the damper controller as well just to be safe. Is this a result of the evaporator coils getting too hot due to the refrigerator not cooling properly? Or is this the problem that is causing my cooling issue to begin with?

This video was great. I have this same fridge and both my fridge and freezer stopped cooling last night, do you think this is my problem..

I replaced the fan but fan is not running. Is that normal?

I bought another fan and it doesn't fit, it has the same side and it doesn't fit, how do I solve that

Just got this fridge and the electronics stopped working on the door. The fridge/freezer still work but the motor seems to be running loud. Any clue what’s wrong?

Does this fan cool the inside of the fridge ?

What where the symptoms that prompted the replacement? My evaporator only the freezer keeps frosting up with “snow cone” ice (start hearing a grinding noise when it encroaches on the fan). Several techs have said it’s getting air in, but all doors shut and seem to seal well...

I noticed that POS Kitchen Aid refrigerator is the same model that I have had problems with since the first day it was installed. I will never purchase another Kitchen Aid product😡😢

No wonder appliance repair costs so much money for what should be simple and easy. The appliance design should be so that component replacement requires minimum dismantling. Taking the doors off is unnecessary and can cause problems. So much disassembly of plastic parts which have plastic tabs that can be damaged is also a problem. A new fan support should be supplied with the replacement fan.

Why does it look like a computer fan? I doubt my 1992 Kenmore fridge has a fan that looks like that.

This is to much lol

This is terrible design and a terrible fridge I mean come on all this work just to get one little part of it might as well just did a new fridge at this point

I bought another fan and it doesn't fit, it has the same side and it doesn't fit, how do I solve that