Maytag Refrigerator Ice Maker Frozen

I have a Maytag French Door refrigerator, MFX2571XRM1, purchased around 2011. The icemaker, W10300024, and ice bin became full of ice. Upon removal of the ice bin, it was found that the movable arm for crushing ice cubes had become disconnected from one of the pivots and was jammed. It is not known how or when it happened. The arm is the plastic piece with the metal rod end in the picture.

With the ice bin removed, I removed all ice cubes and other frozen water from the bin, including breaking up cubes in the tray and in other places in the bin housing.

Then I removed the icemaker, again removing ice cubes and surrounding frozen water from the mold. For those not familiar with these icemakers, there is a heater built into the ice cube mold that operates for several seconds after the cubes are formed to slightly thaw where the cubes contact the mold. This makes it possible for the fingers to rotate the cubes out of the mold and into the tray of the bin.

I looked at a few You Tube videos and took some multimeter readings. Since the icemaker was disconnected from the power cable, I could not check voltage presence. I was, however, able to measure the resistance of the heater/icemaker assembly. The blue label says the icemaker is 260 watts and 115 volts. This calculates a resistance of 50.9 ohms. There was a comment in one of the videos about the resistance being 72 ohms, which comes out to about 184 watts. Looking back at that video, the label for that icemaker said 185 watts. I conclude the heater/icemaker has sufficient continuity.

At this point I am unable to conclude exactly what happened. Since I have no evidence the water supply valve is leaking, I tend to think the excess may be because of the high humidity this spring and frequent use of the ice maker. Maybe some cubes got “stuck” and forced the flap over the opening, where the cubes/crushed ice come out of the bin and through the passage in the door into the container for the ice, to be out of position. I can’t positively prove if the arm being out of position, kept the flap from closing, thereby constantly allowing humid air from the kitchen to entering the ice bin/icemaker. Or if opening the refrigerator door in the humid weather allowed moisture into the refrigerator which then condensed in the mold. All guesswork.

While my preference is to know what happened and not get into putting the unit back together, only to have to remove it again, I tend to think, quit guessing, put it back together and see what happens.

I am trying to figure out the best next steps. A new Maytag icemaker is almost $300 at multiple sources. There are lots of aftermarket “equivalents”, but I do not know which are reliable and if the icemaker is not the cause, what is??? Being a DIY guy with my apartment heating system, I try to fix things on my own, many times with advice from HHers. Maybe someone has experience with these icemakers.