winterizing Dometic refrigerator ice maker

[pchicky]

One of the other posts had asked about winterizing the fridge. My friends at Martinsburg RV showed me a simple way to do it. First do your normal procedures and pump the RV antifreeze into the lines. When that's completed, to take care of the icemaker, do the following:

(1) Make sure the fridge is off
(2) Take the external vent cover for the fridge off outside your rig.
(3) look on the right hand side and you'll see a small electric pump (mine is red) with two wires coming from it. Disconnect those wires.
(4) Get an old electric cord from an appliance, trim off the ends and put the same type of electrical connector that you unplugged in step 3.
(5) Plug in your cord to the fridge, and then the other end into an electric outlet. On model 6400, there is one in the radio compartment right under the fridge vent.
(6) Go into the rig, make sure you have the water system pressurized with RV coolant (pump on), then turn on the fridge, and push the bar down on the icecube maker to turn it on. Make sure you have the empty ice cube tray underneath the icemaker.
(7) When you see the RV coolant coming out of the icemaker, shut off the fridge, go outside and unhook your plug in cable (from electric outlet and fridge) and replug in the original refrigerator electric lines to the red pump.
(8) replace the outside vent cover and you're done.

This works like a charm. If there are easier ways to do this, I'm all ears. Hope this is helpful.

[Texas TC]

Dang PC, that sounds kinda complicated to simple minded ol' me. I do not have one of those fancy ice makers but it seems to me that the easy way to winterize it would just be to drain it.

[pchicky]

Nah, it isn't that bad to do, just looks complicated. I do drain my entire system before putting in the RV anitfreeze....but surprisingly enough, the water line from the pump in the refrigerator to the icemaker doesn't drain backwards, or it hasn't on mine....so when I do the little procedure, a fair amount of clear water comes out before the antifreeze. Call me paranoid, but I'd rather do that then bust those little water lines on the back of the refrigerator.

The procedure takes about 3 minutes soup to nuts....my explanation is step by step, so it's more in words than it probably needs to be.

The icemaker is something I could do without to be honest, but it's there so I use it....it does take the better part of a day to get ice really flowing out, and if you want the ice bin full, you better plan on 3 days for that. I keep icetrays in the freezer for the short trips and don't fool with the icemaker.