Hi, it’s Steve from PartSelect. Today we’re going to show you how to change the fresh
food door gasket on your refrigerator. It’s a really easy job; all we’re going to need
is a Phillips screwdriver, a #15 torques bit, a putty knife, a 3/8ths socket and wrench,
and a small plastic-head hammer. Let me show you how we do it.
Now before we begin this repair the first thing we’re going to have to do is to soften
up this gasket. Yours will probably look like this once it comes out of the packaging and
it will be set in the wrong position so you’ll need to soften that up. Typically what we
would do is put that in a clothes dryer and let it run for a few minutes or put it in
a tub of hot water, or if it’s a nice sunny hot day set it outside on a nice flat surface
so that we can take some of the kinks out of it. Once we’ve done that we’ll be ready
to install.
Now while we’re waiting for the refrigerator door gasket to heat up in the dryer and soften
out a bit we’re going to go ahead and remove the freezer door so that we can get the center
hinge pin out, so that we can remove the refrigerator door to set it on a suitable work surface.
It’s easier to do that gasket replacement with the door off than it is with it in place.
Now if you have no place to put the items out of the freezer while we’re doing this
repair I would suggest putting the freezer door back on but as well make sure we turn
the refrigerator off so that we don’t introduce warm room-temperature air into the freezer.
So we’ll turn that off first.
Next we’ll remove a single Phillips head screw that holds the hinge cover in place.
Set that aside.
Then we’ll remove two #20 torques head screws from the hinge.
Now we’ll just lift the freezer door off and set that aside temporarily.
Now with your 3/8ths socket or wrench we’ll remove that center hinge pin; then we can
remove the refrigerator door and put it on a suitable work surface.
Now we can put that pin back in place, and we’ll replace the freezer door. We’ll
just put those screws in temporarily to hold the freezer door from falling off.
And now we’re ready to remove the old gasket from the refrigerator door.
Now to remove the old gasket we’ll take our putty knife and go in under the outside
edge of that, just pry it up a bit and you’ll see a metal strip in there; we’ll want to
pull the tab out of that metal strip which is what holds that gasket in place so with
the putty knife just pry up on the inner portion of the gasket, until you get a bit of it started,
then you can probably pull the rest out with your hand. If you run into a tight spot just
use the putty knife again.
You may find the corners a little bit harder to remove than the sides, but they will lift
up; just work your way all the way around it.
Now we can lift that old gasket off of the door and discard it.
While we have that off, particularly along the bottom edge of the door, you’ll find
some debris that has built up there so we’ll take that opportunity to clean that surface
nice and clean and smooth.
Now that we have that surface nice & clean we’re ready to install the new gasket.
So we’ll lay it over the door first, line it up approximately where it should be; what
we have to do is to get this white center ridge into that gap in the metal retaining
strap. Find a spot to start with, and press it down into place.
This is where our little plastic hammer will come in handy, tap that in; it needs to be
firmly into that channel to hold it secure, and also to provide a good seal between the
gasket and the outer door panel.
The corners will be the toughest spot to get it to mate properly with that metal retaining
strip so make sure that it’s good and secure in those areas; and then just work your way
all the way around.
Now that we have the gasket firmly seated all the way around, the outer lip is laying
flat on the outer door panel, we’re ready to reinstall the door.
All right, in preparation to putting the refrigerator door back on we’ll need to remove the freezer
door first, so take the screws out of the hinge; you will need to support that door
as you remove the second of the two screws.
And again we’ll just set that aside. Remove the center hinge pin, and we’re ready to
put the refrigerator door in place.
Make sure we tighten that hinge pin.
Next we’ll put the freezer door back on. Take care when putting these screws in we don’t get them cross-threaded.
Now before we tighten those two top screws we want to make sure that the gap between
the freezer and the refrigerator doors is equal on both sides and is level across the
top.
Tighten them securely.
We’ll reinstall the hinge cover, make sure that we turn the refrigerator back on, and
our repair is complete.
Told you it was an easy job. Thanks for watching, and good luck with your repair.
