That talk with an old timer about defrost timers got me

I was swapping out a defrost timer on a Whirlpool fridge yesterday, nothing crazy, just a standard R0751623 part. Old guy comes in, been doing this since the 80s, watches me for a minute then says you know those things are just fancy egg timers right. Caught me off guard at first but he explained how he used to fix them by swapping a cheap motor instead of replacing the whole assembly. Made me think about how much we just swap parts now instead of actually fixing the problem. I been doing this 12 years and never once tried to repair a timer. Has anyone else run into those older repair tricks that actually work better than just swapping the whole thing out?

3 comments

3 Comments

mary7761mo ago

Had a buddy spend $12 fixing a timer motor when the whole assembly was $60.

the_charles17d ago

...and that buddy probably saved himself future headaches too. The key is knowing which part actually fails. On those basic mechanical timers with the little syncron motor, you can just swap in a new motor for under 15 bucks and its the same exact result. I keep a couple spare motors in my truck now, takes longer to find my screwdriver than to do the swap.

gibson.elizabeth1mo ago

Ngl I was the same way for years, just swapped the whole timer out without a second thought. @mary776 that's exactly what I'm talking about, $12 vs $60 is a no brainer once you know. But that old timer's line about them being "fancy egg timers" really stuck with me, made me realize I've been treating these things like black boxes instead of just a motor and some contacts. I actually looked up the motor repair after that conversation and found a YouTube video showing how to do it in like 10 minutes. Now I'm kinda mad at myself for all the perfectly good timers I tossed in the trash over the years.