[frg009re4]

Re: Zanussi ZX56/4 not working

Here is an update should anyone else have problems with these or any other fridge/freezer.

I had a service engineer around, as I wanted the fault sorted quickly. He tested the defrost timer. That checked out ok. The defrost timer can be checked very easily by unscrewing the white box located at the bottom left rear of the fridge/freezer. A screw should be visible on the top cover which when turned with a screwdriver forces the timer into the off or on position. Depending on the fault, the timer will be in the on or off position. There are many websites, which go into great detail about testing the timer fully. As nothing happened when the timer was forced into both positions. The defrost timer was deemed working.

The fault was tracked down to the K59L2037 temperature regulator found at the front under the top cover of the unit. To bypass the temperature regulator he short-circuited two pins on the regulator which made the fridge/freezer kick into live (I didn’t observe which pins they were). Very dangerous don’t try this if you don’t know what you are doing. It’s safer to measure the resistance between the contacts using a DVM.

I observed that measuring a working thermostat contacts with a DVM the resistance between each of the three contacts read zero ohms at room temperature. The faulty thermostat read open circuit i.e greater than 100Mega ohms between two of the three contacts.

It would appear the fault I experienced, was that the thermostat was telling the rest of the fridge/freezer system that the temperature within the fridge was at the correct temperature, when clearly it wasn’t, so nothing was happening. It’s possible the thermostat could fail differently, and tell the rest of the system that the correct temperature hasn’t been reached so the fridge/freezer will be on permanently trying to cool the fridge temperature down. I would expect the symptoms seen here would be a very cold fridge and constant operation from the unit.

The service engineer didn’t have a replacement part with him. So I was left to order the part and fit it myself. I ordered an exact replacement part from UK Whitegoods, it arrived the next day, great customer service via email and phone. Highly recommended.

Fitting the new thermostat was easy. Here is the procedure should anyone be tempted to do it.

Disconnect unit from mains.
Remove screws from top cover, slide cover forwards and lift off.
Unscrew the fridge cold air slide vent at the rear of the fridge.
Slide the thermostat capillary out of the plastic tubing.
Unscrew the nut holding the thermostat to the front panel.
Pull off the connector plugged into the thermostat.
Pull on the thermostat/capillary and carefully remove the capillary from the hole at the top right hand side of fridge.
Slide the new thermostat capillary down the hole and push until it magically emerges in the fridge.
Make sure there is enough of the capillary in fridge to slide all the way into the plastic tube of the fridge slide vent.
Refit fridge cold air slide vent.
Connector thermostat to mating connector.
Refit nut holding the thermostat to the front panel.
Check all wiring is secure and not likely to chaff or short on anything.
Push thermostat selector onto thermostat. Slide on the top cover, and refit screws.
Turn on mains.
Turn the thermostat selector to the desired position.
The fridge should now kick into life.

Hope that helps anyone else who needs advice.

Thanks

[Author]

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