GE Opal Rebuild Saga - Fix Leaking, Screeching, Scaling, and More!

I obtained a GE Opal Profile 1.0 Nugget Ice Machine on OfferUp. It was a package deal that included an all-in-one coffee machine. Two $400 machines for $50 was too good to pass up. After filling and rinsing, I found out why they wanted to be rid of it: it sounded like a wailing banshee! There was also a grinding noise. And it leaked. What had I gotten myself into?

I’m hoping what I learned will help you keep yours running too. Be sure to reach out if you have any questions or comments: dan@danlearnsstuff.com

Models

The pictures in this thread refer to what is colloquially known as Opal 1.0. It is listed on the back as OPAL01GEPSS. It has a 9-hole Cap where the ice exits the auger channel.

 

A 2.0 model has a broadly similar construction and disassembly procedure, but it may require different tools and parts than what is listed here.

Problems

Below are the types of issues that I have personally fixed on my machine:

• Have a fast leak? If it can’t hold water at all, replacing the auger seal will stop the worst leaks.
• Does it screech or whine after water has begun to freeze? Replacing the bottom seal will help this.
  
• Does it screech or whine immediately after starting, but it goes away once it gets cold? Replacing the upper auger bushing will help.
• Have white particles in your ice? Do you use tap or filtered water? Descaling will help. Switching to distilled or Reverse Osmosis water will extend the life of your machine greatly.
• Have black particles or sludge that are not mold? Replacing the upper auger bushing will help too.
• Have black particles that may be mold? A chlorine wash will help.
  

This page captures images and step by step directions for fixing the above auger-related issues. They are mostly centered within the auger chamber itself, but disassembly instructions can help you diagnose and treat a variety of problems. There are other tutorials online that can help you swap the drain lines and diagnose fan and pump problems that are separate from auger wear and tear.

Parts

Throughout this guide, I refer to replaceable parts that can wear down over time and can be replaced using various sources online. Most commodity parts and supplies can be found on Amazon. Some were specially engineered for this machine, and the community has people that are machining replacements you can purchase to keep our babies running well past their original lifetimes.

• 3/4” Auger Seal
• Auger Bushing
• H1 Food-safe Grease
• Distilled White Vinegar
• Ice Machine Cleaner

Disassembly for Auger Maintenance

 Getting into the auger is a bit more difficult than the water pump and other areas. You'll need the following tools:

• Phillips head screwdriver (with long shaft for deeply inset screws)
• Electric screwdriver with phillips head bit for lots of tiny screws
• Spudger or pry-tool
• 10mm deep socket with extension

To help clean out the auger shaft and reseat auger seals, you may also need:

• Long flat-head screwdriver
  
• Large and long socket extension tool
• Long hooked pick or long and narrow needle-nose pliers

Start by UNPLUGGING THE UNIT. I cannot stress this enough. Make sure it is not plugged in before starting!

Then, drain the unit completely. No water should remain.

You can now begin to tear into the unit by removing the top lid.  4 screws hide under rubber caps. A spudger or sharp steak knife can help remove them. Beware: If they hit the counter, they will bounce everywhere.

Disconnect the wi-fi card cable that hides right under the lid.

Remove all screws from the back panel. Move the drain hoses off the panel, and set the entire panel aside.

Remove the screws from the side panels. This is to expose the screws holding the upper tank to the chassis, and to give you more room to maneuver things. You don’t need to completely remove the surround from the chassis! Just shift it up and out of the groove in the base. Careful! It’s got sharp edges!

Unscrew the upper tank from the chassis.

Unscrew the other two interior screws for the upper tank, pictured here.

This transparent cap is held on by 3 screws and weather-stripping-like insulated moulding. Carefully remove the moulding and unscrew the cap.

Having unscrewed the upper water tank in a previous step, shift it off the black chute. It doesn’t have to move very far.

Unscrew the black chute. You will need a skinny long handled Phillips. The screws may be rusty, so be careful they don’t get stripped. There are two inside screws at the tail of the chute as well.

After the black chute is removed, this styrofoam cap can be removed as well. Carefully wiggle it free. To free up space, you can move the water tank farther away. It might also help to unplug the connectors for the front panel and fullness sensor (black and white, squeeze to separate). Remember to reconnect them!

You have successfully revealed the auger body! A 10mm socket will remove the 4 cap screws. As you loosen them, the cap may spring up. They keep tension on the seal spring.

The auger cap will pull straight up revealing the auger chamber. You can see the white bushing nestled inside the cap.

Using a cloth to help get purchase on the auger shaft, lift the auger straight up and out. It should come up with the spring part of the seal.

And now you can see directly to the bottom of the auger chamber. The seal rests on the bottom between the metal body and the ceramic ring/bushing. NOTE: This picture shows the auger seal seated incorrectly!

Congratulations! You have disassembled your ice maker.

General Maintenance: Descale and Sanitize

If you don't use distilled water or that from a reverse osmosis unit, descaling monthly will keep your unit in tip-top shape.

Clean-out and Regrease

While you have it open, take a moment to check other parts that can get gunked up.

• If your machine is whining, the auger is being eroded and scraped off in the chamber. This can lead the upper and lower tanks getting a dark sediment. Wipe  it out and rinse.
• Check the lines for white sediment. The descaling process can knock these loose, but the pump won’t be able to move it into the tank. You can detach and rinse these pipes as well.
• If you have lots of scale, it may be faster to chip it off with a brass tool. Just don’t scratch the surface of your parts by using anything harder than that.
• Vacuum off fans and grilles to keep your cooling system in top shape.
• Look for leaks and calcium deposits. These are harbingers of bigger problems.

Replace the Auger Seal

A grinding that goes away until the machine cools down or fast leaks from below the chamber through the gear case are most likely due to a bad seal at the bottom of the auger. This multi-part pump seal keeps water in the chamber, and it has rubber, ceramic, and metal parts. It is way over-built for this application, but you need to handle the parts carefully. Order matters, and cleanliness matters.

The ceramic ring sits within the round rubber seal. The other half is a metal seat, spring, and rubber seal. The seat fits on the auger shaft against the helix. The rubber seal on the spring fits against the ceramic ring when properly fit into the chamber. The ceramic is sensitive to oils on your skin. It can degrade faster and affect the seals. Clean it with isopropyl alcohol if you touch it. The rubber seals can use a tiny bit of H1 food-safe grease to help seat them properly.

To replace the pump seal, pull the auger and then use a dental scraper or hooked tool to remove the bottom seal and ceramic ring. Seat the new sitting seal on the auger with the rubber towards the socket.

It can be difficult to seat the new bottom seal in the bottom of the chamber without touching the ceramic. Slip it around a long screwdriver or socket extension, sit the tip of the tool onto the crank, and drop the seal into place. Clean off the tool and press the ceramic down into the crank cavity. If this doesn’t seat well, it will leak immediately and vigorously once you seal it back up. Note: The picture below is wrong! The seal is on the wrong side from the ring! If you have better pictures, please send them my way.

When you reset the auger, ensure the spring is not stuck in its compressed state. It will have some bounce when you put the cap back on.

Replace the Bushing

Is there an unholy banshee haunting your machine? The tell-tale wail is probably the bushing at the top of the auger. It keeps the auger centered in the chamber, but it wears down over time. This leaves the auger to scrape against the sides of the chamber. This causes black sludge and a gradually eroded auger.

eBay seller gweedoh machines his own new bushings from material that it’s much stronger than the stock ones. But from him and buy for life. You can see the size of the worn out bushings versus a new one below.

Each one comes pre-coated with food safe H1 grease as well.

Just pop the old one out and the new one in. The wailing is gone!

Note: I’ve included affiliate links to parts and products that helped me get my machine back in working order.

Fix Always-on Defrost + Floor for Ford/Lincoln/Mercury EATC Climate Control

So there we were: driving from Portland to San Diego, car full of apartment supplies and heading into the desert south of Eugene, OR on a 95F/35C day. When we hit the first hill, the AC makes a sound and switches from Max to Defrost and looses all efficiency. Ugh.

I had a hell of a time getting the air conditioning on my 2000s Mercury Grand Marquis to blow anything but Defrost/Floor. It started with family smelling exhaust when it was on Max AC/Recirculate. Then it would switch to Defrost when going uphill. Finally, it stopped sending air through anything by the top vent/floor.  Turns out the vacuum-actuated doors run through the notoriously leaky EATC HVAC Control Head. The troubleshooting advice below should apply equally to any vacuum system Ford/Lincoln/Mercury AC units.

Initial Troubleshooting - O-Rings

If you're here, you have probably seen the archived MercuryMarauder.net thread with tons of advice, pictures, and fixes to help you get started. The best fix to start with is to swap out the o-rings inside the solenoids. The fix is a few dollars (007 O-Rings from any Ace should work, or get the silicone ones from eBay from sellers that have them specifically labeled for this fix). It can be done in an hour with the proper tools, and there are a ton of YouTube videos detailing the fix.

007 O Rings at Ace hardware

 

Next Step - Leaking Valve Body

Sometimes, the o-ring fix doesn't work. Farther down the thread, fastblackmerc details how to fix a leaky valve body -- the part that connects the hoses to the solenoids:

1. Disassemble the EATC Head. Take off the solenoids completely so it is just black plastic.
2. Plug the solenoid tubes with 5/8" vac caps (made mine out of kinked tubes)
   
3. Plug the vac hose tubes with 1/8" vac caps (connected these to each other, see below)
   
4. Check to see if the body is holding pressure: Hook a length of spare tube up to one of the tubes and blow with your mouth. If it's not holding pressure, you will hear a hissing from the tubes or body.
5. Check where the leaks are coming from: Submerse the entire valve body in water and blow again. You'll see bubbles rising from the micro-cracks letting out the air.
6. Dry off the valve body and cover/fill up cracks with 2-part epoxy. You can also use the same tube you used to blow in air to subject the valve body to a vacuum and draw the epoxy into the cracks. Careful! Don't get too aggressive with this or you might plug the pathways for vacuum.
   
7. Wait for the epoxy to cure and repeat the check for cracks/fill steps until the valve body is no longer leaking.
   

For me, I took his advice and it still didn't work. I had leaks elsewhere. But it might work for you.

Valve Body with all it's holes plugged

Desperation Move - Bypass Valve Body

If the fixes to the valve body are still not working, you might needs to bypass the head completely. This can be done as easily as hard-wiring 1/8" vacuum tubing to the two mixer doors that control air flow. Or you can follow a simple extra step to ensure you can restore Defrost as needed.

I followed Victor's video about the bypass. He gets under the dash (two plastic panel shield retainers hold it to a metal bracket) and is able to access the vacuum coupling behind the EATC Head.  1/8 hose and T connectors from AutoZone helped me get the bypass and Recirculate working just like him.

To take it a step further, I bought a 1/4 sprinkler valve from Lowes and patched it in with an additional T. Now I can turn the valve to open on cold mornings, let the vacuum out, and get Defrost/Floor when I want. I left the hose extra long and ran it up into the glove box. Easy access but still hidden.

Bodge under the dash for Recirculate

Valve that an be opened at will for turning on Defrost/Floor

Side Step - Check that the Door Actuators Still Work

If this isn't your first crack at the fix, you might want to make sure the door actuators are actually working. If the issue started occurring for you gradually, and all mix doors won’t respond, this is unlikely to be your problem. However, it can help to rule out all possible causes if it is driving you crazy.

To do this, you will need to access the vacuum lines (detailed above) and a length of vacuum hose and some fittings to get a good seal. You can either create your own vacuum with a hand-pump of the type used to bleed brakes, or pipe the existing vacuum main line from one line to each outlet and listen for the doors as they actuate beneath the dash. An extreme solution is pictured below. Using sprinkler fittings, I bodged together a 4-way plug to make sure I was getting Recirculate mode activated.

The hand pump vacuum is holding pressure. The EATC is probably at fault.

Wristband Teardown from Amazon's #FireTVSDCC Event at San Diego Comic Con

A friend returned from San Diego Comic Con 2018 with an RFID bracelet used to track users in the Amazon Fire TV experience (on Twitter, #FireTVSDCC).  This is a teardown of the bracelet after the event.  At this time, I was unable to read from the bracelet.

The bracelet is fairly simple with a cloth band and plastic/paper tab threaded through.  The closure is plastic and one-way.  It bites into and mangles the cloth band if you attempt to remove, but you could probably shim it with tools and practice.  Might be a fun thing for the Tamper Evident Village if it turned out events were trying to use this for access control like plastic self-destructing wristbands.

The back contains a serial number.  I would like to see if this serial number would match the data read off the tag.

Separating the badge by prying them apart, I  spot the prize: an adhesive RFID tag placed between the glossy plastic covers.  It appears to have a model number of "CXJ-040" in the center of the tag.  It uses a circular antenna.  CXJ is the initials of Shenzen manufacturer Chuangxinjia.  Their product pages show many similar wristbands in a few different frequencies.

The tag didn't respond to my Android phone, so it is not a Mifare or similar.  Hopefully I can find a reader at the local Hackerspace or DEF CON 26.