Fun with Fridges

Just one actually. Sunday night sometime our fridge decided it was tired of operating normally. It thought, "You know what? I want to spice things up a bit. I'm going to break down and see if my owners can figure it out!" So Monday we opened the freezer to find our Popsicles in a fluid state rather than a solid one. At the time we thought maybe the freezer door was left open because the towel on the fridge side (it's a side-by-side) sometimes blocks the door. We closed and I decided to just keep an eye on it just in case. Things didn't feel right to me. That night, we had some people over to watch "Meet the Robinsons" and we noticed that the freezer was still warm (~34 F) and our ice cream had melted and various other frozen goods were softer than they should be. By this point, the fridge was getting warm too (approaching 50 F). It was late and there was not much I could do, so I let it sit overnight so I could check temps in the morning. It just got worse. So I rushed to throw out as much food as I could before the trash guys picked up our garbage. I spent the rest of the day trying little things like cleaning the cooling coils under the fridge, checking the defroster heater, and checking the compressor. It didn't take much time, but I would let it run for a while or cool for a while and that took time. In the end I had almost decided it was done with when I found the problem. The starter relay on the side of the compressor had blown. When I took it apart, all kinds of pieces of what I'm guessing is dielectric material fell out. I have to get a new one in the morning. It should be available in town. In case you're curious, the part number is 2183454. Check out the carnage: