The in-door ice maker in our LG refrigerator stopped working a while back. I researched the error code shown on the door and all signs pointed to an issue with the ice maker fan. YouTube showed me that the fan was attached to the back of a panel at the rear of the freezer compartment, and it worked by blowing cold air from that area through a channel in the side of the fridge and into the door where the ice maker was mounted. It all made sense—the ice maker would have shut down because it was not cold enough to make ice—but I wasn’t completely sure that was the issue.
It took a few tries, but I found an appliance repair person who could come out, and he verified that it was the fan. The fridge was an older model though, so he’d have to order the part. I felt comfortable performing the replacement myself, so I decided to handle it from there.
I verified that the part he wrote down was the correct one for our fridge, found one on Amazon, and ordered it. When it arrived, I emptied the freezer, disassembled the door, and pulled the back panel off (which required a bit more force than I expected). There were a couple of wires to disconnect, but with minutes I was mounting the new fan to the panel and feeling good about how well the replacement was going.
If you’re wondering when, because this is a home repair story, something didn’t go as expected, this was the when.
As I prepared to put the panel back in place, I discovered the connector on the replacement fan had three prongs while the original had four. I took a picture of the two different connectors, put the old fan back in, reassembled the door, restocked the freezer, and then contacted the seller through Amazon.
The Amazon seller didn’t have a four prong version, so that one went back. I chatted with a company that specialized in appliance parts and they confirmed that their units did have four prongs, so I ordered one. When it arrived, it was the same three prong version I had before. I chatted with them again, and they felt it must have been a part labelling issue. They sent me another one at no charge. That one also had three prongs. After getting a refund (and being told to keep the two parts I couldn’t use), I hit the LG parts web site. They couldn’t provide any information about the number of prongs because the part wouldn’t be available for a week. And then another week. And then another week…
I turned to eBay and found a seller with photos of the complete part…including a four prong connection! Could it be true? Did this unicorn of a refrigerator part actually exist? Within a week I had my answer, and I was finally able to complete the ice maker fan replacement project.