Guess What I'll Be Doing Today?

[Joe-K]

Lori,

I suspect that you don’t actually have a leak, but are experiencing an effect of how the ice maker works. Let’s review an ice maker parts and its operation for minute.

An ice maker consists of a timer, thermostat, cube tray heater, the ejection motor/sweep arm and also the water/mold tray itself. Also part of the operation, but not actually part of the ice maker would be the water fill valve located behind the fridge.

The operation works like this:

The ice maker timer energizes the solenoid on the water-fill valve allowing water to flow into the ice maker tray for a specific amount of time which is set by an adjustment on the timer control. The longer the time that the valve stays open, the more water that flows in the tray and the larger the ice cubes.

When the water tray thermostat senses that the tray has reached a certain temperature it knows that the cubes are frozen and signals the ice maker to begin ejecting the cubes.

The ejection process begins by the timer turning on the cube tray heater, which warms the tray enough for the ice cubes to become loose in the tray. It’s similar to running warm water on the back of an ice mold to slightly melt the ice to allow it to come out of the tray.

Once the cubes are free, the timer then turns on the ejection motor to raise the metal wire arm, while rotating the sweep arm and ejecting the cubes out of the mold and they drop in the ice bucket. Once the cubes fall into the bucket, the wire arm lowers down again and rests on the ice cubes. If the arm drops low enough, it causes the ice maker to operate another ice making cycle and make more cubes.

If you think about it, there isn’t much in an ice maker to go wrong or leak and certainly nothing that would cause it to leak only antifreeze, but not water. I spent a little time last night thinking about what’s happening and pretty sure you are simply getting overflow when operating with antifreeze in the system. Here’s why…..

When operating with antifreeze, the ice maker fills as designed with the timer opening the fill valve and the tray filling. The antifreeze fills the ice cube trays to the proper level and the liquid begins to chill. In a few hours, the liquid had dropped to the temperature that causes the thermostat to “think” that the cubes are frozen solid. This starts the ejection process of turning on the cube tray heater and then running the ejection motor.

In reality though, is that the cubes are not frozen solid, but rather just slushy when the ejection process starts. When the tray heater turns on, it further melts the slushy cubes before the ejection motor tries to push the frozen cubes out of the tray. Since most of the liquid is left behind in the tray, the liquid will overflow when the ice maker refills the tray again to make the second batch of pink ice. Basically since you are not ejecting the first batch completely, when the second batch of antifreeze is added, you get the overflow.

I recalled last year when I operated our unit on antifreeze my pink cubes were mainly broken shells only of ice cubes. In other words there were hollow inside because most of the liquid stayed in the ice cube tray and I suspect I would have had the overflow as well if the unit would have made a second batch.

My suggestion to stop the overflow it would be to leave the ejection wire arm up for a few hours while the ice is freezing then lower it by hand so you can observe the cubes eject. If the cubes don’t eject whole, then you know you have antifreeze in the tray and the winterization is complete, but if the cubes do come out as clear ice, then run the second batch.

[NLOVNIT]

Thanx, Joe. I'll pass your info along to Dave.

It didn't happen with just the antifreeze though. The same thing happened in the spring after we had flushed everything out & were running water through. We had the fridge on & it was sucking in regular water, but instead of making cubes, it dripped out the side of the maker & froze in a lump in the bottom of the freezer compartment. We had no cubes that weekend we were all at Cuttys (out 1st time out). Once we were back home from the trip & I turned off the fridge to thaw it all out, when we started it up again (for the Rally), I got ice cubes instead of it dripping out the side. It continued to produce cubes all season...up until we did the winterizing on Tues. Then I ended up with the pink slush pile in the bottom of the compartment. I turned off the fridge & have since cleaned up the slush. I could try starting it up again to test the leaking, but I'm sure we've got antifreeze in the line, so I'm not going to bother until spring.

I will take your advice to leave the arm up though, come spring dewinterizing, to keep it from overflowing. I'm pretty sure I had the arm down that 1st time out.

Lori-

[Frank P. Martin]

That's probably what Gomer Pyle would have said had he been washing the exterior of my TT this afternoon. I scrubbed the roof last Wednesday. Yes, it was really dirty. But, it's clean now and supposed to be sunny tomorrow. If I can get it in the mine dry, it should be just as clean when I take it out next spring. It's such a sad event when we tow it there every fall.

[ISLAPP]

Well, got mine winterized yesterday. Try to get it emptied out and washed over the next couple of days and then maybe store it this weekend.
Mike

[NLOVNIT]

Spent Saturday washing the outside, spent Sunday washing/vaccuming the inside & put the cover on the coach today. Sure woulda rather been out for a last camping trip (like Jim & Diane), but it's much better putting it to bed when it's a nice day out than to be doing it when it's 40-degrees & windy - been there, done that. Nuthin' like trying to hang onto & wrestle a 40 foot long 13 ft tall piece of fabric on the coach roof when the wind's blowin' .

Now, time to open a bottle of wine, curl up with the laptop & start planning next year's trips.

Lori-

[Superslif]

Got back Sunday and washed the roof and sprayed on some rubber roof stuff. I'll have to find some time Tuesday to winterize. Next years plans I have been thinking about over the last month or so. We visited Prince Gallitzin State Park back in July for a "look see" which I really liked. I think I'll make it our first week trip in June, as soon as Robert gets out of school. Possible other trips or destinations include: Vermont / New Hampshire, Myrtle Beach, Smoky Mtns., Southern Ohio (Pike Lake, Tar Hollow, Scioto Trail).