Fixing my squeaking GE Profile Opal 2.0 nugget ice maker

After 13 months this ice maker started squealing like crazy. I decided to break it down and take a look at the inside of the machine and see if I could fix it.

[@kickerwormz3262]

I've gone through 2 of them. Warranty swapped both of them. The newer models have a 100-hour timer to remind you to clean it. I clean it. Woke up my wife and kids. They need to fix this common issue. It's ridiculous.

[@Blondie7676]

I’ve been given 3 at this point.

[@chisrodgers9571]

Thank you for this video!!! We've had ours 3 years and it starting the screaming noise. I followed your video and when I got to the cylinder that you were able to simply pull out by hand, mine would not budge. I ended up tapping the top lightly with a hammer and it suddenly popped up about 1/4 inch. I pulled it out, the bottom and the spring was covered in gunk. Cleaned everything thoroughly, put it back together (no extra screws) and it runs as quiet as the day we got it. Thanks again!!

[@rsaalman78]

Glad this video is still helping people

[@yuliyachilders]

It's a machine I love to hate. It does the job until it doesn't. Bought this for my husband, who's a crunchy ice junkie. He loves loves loves it. We had to replace the first brand new machine due to squeaking. The replacement they sent had already gone through the maintenance and inspection by the time it got to us, so it worked really well for over a year. We cleaned it regularly. Used only filtered water from supermarket reverse osmosis machine. A few months ago it started scraping, and it was no light sound. Like nails on the glass, only super loud and mournful. I took it apart per your recommendations. Oh, the amount of nasty gunk to found inside! The shaft that holds the actual ice-scraper was full of jello-like slime, the little white box with the float sensor was filled with filth. This can't possibly be a smart design if it takes so many steps to get to these parts to clean them. Vinegar just doesn't do the job. Anyway, it's working quietly now, and the inaugural ice has been produced. Thank you for a helpful video! Hubby is happy, and he now owes me big time, which is a perk :)

[@bdh008]

Just a note on this. Newer GE Opal 2.0 (2023 version) have made the entire assembly one welded piece, which means the auger bit can no longer be removed at home.. You will know you have the newer version if the top metal conical disk (right above the 6 ice extruder holes) has holes cut into it. (Your plastic ice extruder will look slightly different too) I'm having the same issue, and wanted to try and fix my own, after hearing horror stories of dealing with GE support. I've only ever used distilled water in my system, so I think my issue is that rubber gasket squeaking. I looked into ways of accessing the auger with the new design, however I do not believe it is possible without damaging the refrigeration lines. I was able to slightly bend the lines and disconnect the ice-making assembly from the drive shaft below it by removing the plate bolts (which are now located much lower), but the auger was still not able to be removed. Furthermore, after I removing the plate bolts, I realized they actually were screwed into a nut on the other side, all four of which dropped into the internal gear shaft cavity. I'm now six hours deep into a full disassembly/reassembly, and at the point where I'm needing to superglue the nuts to the top lid of the gear shaft cavity, since they apparently assembled parts of this while it was upside down. If I happen to find a way to fix the issue with the new design I will update this comment thread. If you have the new design I would recommend not taking it apart further once you notice the conical difference, unless you like exercises in futility like me.

[@cstracy]

Any luck? I’m pretty much in the same boat right now. Can’t get the bolts back in because the nuts fell.

[@richardruiz302]

@@cstracyI had the same issue. I removed the bolts just holding the housing where the nuts n washers fell into . You can move the pieces just enough to align the nuts to lightly attach the bolts.

[@mygelbergstresser7729]

Thanks for sharing this.

[@erichyde2543]

came to say this. Crazy how different the design is

[@matego69]

My ice machine was making the exact same noise. I pulled mine apart like your video shows and 24hr later, no noise and a full hopper. Thank you!

[@TrentonGold]

Great video thank you! As a heads up, another video on KZbin goes so far as to say the squeaking is as you mentioned coming from the auger and the freezing chamber. He also goes on to say the squeaking is caused by the defective bushing in the top of the chamber cover that you pulled off. The suggestion is that the bushing is too wide allowing for too much play back and forth, allowing the auger to lean against the freezing chamber while turning, thereby causing the squeaking and screeching noises. Finally, he goes on to say that the black sludge we often find in the bottom of the ice maker and the side tank is not mold, but actually ground down metal flakes from the friction caused by the leaning auger against the freezing chamber walls. I've cleaned my opal original version multiple times only to have the black sludge return after having heard the unit screeching multiple times over the course of the few weeks. The alleged solution is to replace the white plastic bushing again in the top cover to the freeze chamber which is smaller with and it holds the auger securely in place, preventing it from leaning and scratching against the freeze chamber. I intend to perform this test by deep cleaning my unit disassembling the auger cover and replacing with third-party replacement bushings, and will know within a few weeks whether the black sludge has or has not returned. For anyone interested, here's the link: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2q3m4GKZ8yCh5Isi=T6OsFw4ckFspYrEU

[@pdc1995]

Any luck?

[@charlesc1687]

Opened mine up to find stripped and rusted screws water leaking interally and severe corrosion. While I like to fix things myself, there were so many issues I tossed it and bought another. Great video.. I'd like to mention that I did not have a T25 but the equivalant sized allen wrench worked. Too bad all of those screws were waterlogged and rusted into place as well. Also, I looked at the tubbing under the internal water housing unit and it was full of gunk. Even after several cleanings and vinegar runs. Love this device but wish they made it easier to clean and upkeep.

[@johngood3163]

Clear, plain spoken, easy to understand, glad you produced this. Thank you.

[@CoachYoungTFXC]

You rock! I knew the squeaking was coming from that area, but I was afraid that the styrofoam was glued in around everything… good gosh the squeak has caused me to go mad. 🍻

[@rsaalman78]

Glad I could help

[@jaecehogue217]

Thank you for making this video!!! I took mine apart like you did and cleaned it really well. So far, no squealing. Hopefully it stays that way! 🤞🏻

[@JaclynGrafe]

Thanks for posting, I followed your instructions, soaked pieces in pure vinegar, including spindle, scrubbed with wire pad and bottle cleaner …. And machine is running much better! No squeak! Took me about 1.5 hr to complete. Good reminder to do the vinegar overnight soaks more routinely as we had a lot of build up around the bottom of spindle and on surrounding parts. Ours started this sound after 1.5 yr. Clean monthly and descaled overnight once in that period. Will be doing that more. Thanks again!

[@jp3848]

Thanks for posting this Ryan. There are many video's & posts about this issue, but just about all of them are earlier generation Opals. I had the same problem not too long after I bought mine. GE Replaced it under warranty, but the next one did the same thing after a few months. I went about it a little differently, I removed the back, but didn't go any deeper. I took some garage door lube and sprayed the heck of the fan motor, around the belt and down the pin holding the fan blade. It took about a week for the grease to seep down in all the moving parts of the motor, but this seems to have fixed my squeal (it hasn't squealed in about 2 years). I also run descaler through it about once a month, and clean with bleach solution every two weeks.

[@VAspeed3]

Taking mine apart now. Squeaking was never much of an issue but now it leaks all over the counter. Had to put a big baking tray under it to contain all the water. It leaks out of the top where the auger plate meets the body of the ice making cylinder. Hope dissassembly, cleaning, and reassembly will stop the leaking.

[@julissabido]

I think the problem is most people are using vinegar to clean these ice makers instead of using an actual ice maker de scaler. I have the opal 2.0 as well for 3 years and I run vinegar 1ce a week but the actual de scaler 1ce a month. That’s what’s going to prevent buildup in the machine.

[@texAngeJolie]

Ours is 2 yrs old. Just started making that awful noise. I clean it monthly. I bought a cleaning brush on a cable for ice maker on refrigerators to clean those tubes on the back and intake in the reservoir, followed by the vinegar soak…talk about nasty! I also bought the filters. Now to get to work on that awful squeaking! Thanks for the video!!

[@byronlentz4825]

Mine is less than a year old. It started squealing with in a month or so. In the FAQs reference to squealing during defrost was something that happened. I am not satisfied with that answer. It seemed that if I cleaned it once a week the squealing would stop. But it seem worse now than ever. But now I have a direction in which to go. Thanks for making the video.

[@markedwards7762]

Thanks...pretty much the only help on these machines on the internet...

[@SeaTownKilla77]

Thanks for the vid. There is a better disassembly and cleaning video out there. But my problem is the squeak. I needed to see the spindle disassembly, and you did it. Thanks.

[@SeaTownKilla77]

FYI. The top doesn’t need pried off. With the screws out it will slide back to the rear easily, and up and off.

[@wheetgeneration]

We have been using one of these since February 2021. I have only ever cleaned it once and while it currently makes a different sound, it isn't the squeak. The way I have kept ours running and clean is we only feed it distilled water. Distilled in our laundry room by an inexpensive distiller. Thanks for the video. I might take ours apart and try to figure out why it is making the sound it does. Probably a fan starting to go bad.

[@AnnPutnam-nv5lo]

Thank you very much for your video Ryan! Your step-by-step detail gave me the confidence to open my ice machine. I found quite a bit of calcium buildup at the top of the ice extruder and was able to clean that. Now the machine is back to working again, thanks to you!

[@cletabohart7592]

I unplugged mine long enough for thawing to occur. Plugged it back in and the noise had stopped and making ice resumed. Mine is 2 years old to the month.

[@SeaTownKilla77]

Wait a second… mines different on the inside. The spindle part at least. I’m almost positive it’s the 2.0. Interesting. I wanted to remove the 3 torx t25 screws and pull that plate off, but mine is different. They’re are some bolts I’ll try, but the refrigerant lines are connected up higher on mine, so not sure I’ll be able to get it apart?

[@chrisness1494]

We’ve had ours for about 3.5 yrs, ext warr ran out 3 weeks ago…the noise stopped after the first few months of owning, never happened again. Our concern recently, we noticed soooo much hard water seeping everywhere! We went from GE recommended cleaning to googling you tube for deep cleaning. We were so shocked, the half inch of thick mushy algae muck in the internal white tank was absolutely shocking. And the internal tubes were rock solid full of rock hard calcium that no water could come thru it. It still made ice, but the seeping hard water came out of every seam possible! Again 3 weeks out of ext warranty. It’s vile what we had to clean, not even a mention on any GE online or pdf manual. It’s just 2 of us. So not over used. The noise does stop on its own, for us anyways. I could not clean the tubes, had to soak overnight in CLR - then I could push all the hardened calcium out and then use a pipe cleaner type brush and get the very hard stuck bits out. Bad experience, lotsa money.

[@danielgiammarino9068]

This so far has worked for me- thanks! Mine was just over a year old too 😅

[@perrybroadnax2944]

Thank you for this video! This will be my Saturday morning project. Hope my results are the same as yours!

[@JCBike32]

Good vid ! Mine has moaned n groaned since day one ! It’s so annoying I turn it off when I have guests… had it over a year and now it just stopped making ice … it still moans, but no ice. Guess I’ll be diving into mine.

[@DouglasHiga-jc7vh]

Thanks for the great advise, and sharing this. You da man!

[@tinanoland1259]

Just got mom I’m today and followed all steps to get it going. One and half hour later mine was making the same screeching noise as yours was making. Defrost came on my machine. If this is how it’s going to be I’m returning. This is the second one in one month. My other did the same and I returned and got this one. 😤

[@rebeccasue2009]

Thank you. We are currently doing this to ours. We had nasty stuff in the lines so we took those off and cleaned them. We bought ours at goodwill for $50 and it's been working for a few months and just started squealing and stopped making ice. Hopefully this fixes it.

[@jamesslaven]

This exact thing happened to ours. Our water has very high calcium levels and had clogged up the tube that feeds water into the metal piece that actually makes the ice. Has been running like new after that. We did find out that the GE recommends to only use distilled water to help prevent this from happening.

[@kristystricker4721]

Thank you!!!

[@creativelyisabel]

Thank you for posting this video, super helpful, please share how you filter, we use purified water but would love the additional filtration

[@MegaWingman7]

I ran vinegar thru mine and so far so good

[@GRod742]

Thanks for this Video Very helpful

[@user-wq9ty9ek4y]

Hi Ryan! I am in the middle of this and I cannot figure out how to get the screws out of the piece right before the Styrofoam comes off. They have a lot of mineral build up on them and the screws are way down in a dark hole so I can't see what kind of screwdriver I need to use to remove them. Any help you can give would be great! Thank you!

[@rsaalman78]

I believe they were all just Phillips heads

[@lorismith5586]

Mine stopped started making a loud noise after 11 months. Then stopped making ice. Sent it back, got my replacement (refurbished) and now it's been 3 months and it's making that exact screeching noise. So I'll be sending it back since I still have warranty on it. You mentioned using a filter? What filter?

[@rsaalman78]

They sell a water filter for it

[@carolinathrill]

​@@rsaalman78 hey thanks for the video! Took mine slightly apart and decided to do research before breaking something so this video will help a bunch. Can you tell me part number for the filter?

[@CreditUnion24]

Thanks for this!

[@gigisd80]

Hi there, I am having a hard time getting the screws out of the top holding the styrofoam. Did you use a special screw driver? It’s so rusted and full of gunk I can barely see the screw head.

[@rsaalman78]

no special tool but maybe a magnetic bit would help

[@robyin3581]

I’m having the same problem. It looks like it takes a special bit

[@bryanhughes423]

I have had mine apart a few times to clean but never as far as you went. Mine is making the same noise. Has your noise come back? just curious Thank you, I'm going to try this today.

[@rsaalman78]

So sir, it has not made the noise again yet.

[@bryanhughes423]

@@rsaalman78 It completely fixed mine too. No more noise and all cleaned out!

[@floridamomto3528]

Hi Ryan. Thanks for the helpful video. It worked to stopped the very loud squeezing, however now the light inside the ice compartment is barely lighting up and it was bright before. Any ideas?

[@rsaalman78]

Sorry I don’t. Nothing touched should have messed with that light unless the connection to the button got messed up

[@sunnysidefarmsdeming]

I’ve tried to figure out how to send you a photo of my unit but don’t see how to do it. Mine doesn’t have a readily visible access to the auger. I was hoping you might have some insight as to how to access mine.

[@rsaalman78]

Maybe it's a newer model.

[@rsaalman78]

I see someone else made a comment that they made a change to the assembly

[@MaryDavidson911]

I have this machine and I was trying to look at yours when you had your covers all off and on the opposite side of where you were working mine has a bunch of dark looking liquid that ran out and down, as well as sprayed out of those vents and even got onto the kitchen wall behind where the ice machine is sitting. It’s like underneath the little white fan that you pointed out 3/4 of the way to your video. Do you have any idea what this dark liquid could be that sprayed out? I will say mine was making a loud noise but I couldn’t figure out what was wrong and it’s out of warranty and it was still producing ice so I just let it go. I did that for two months prior to this black liquid coming out. So if you’re facing the front of the machine like you’re getting ready to open it to get ice out, the vents that are on the right hand side, The louver vent thingies had a bunch of black liquid leak out and also sprayed out to where it reached the wall behind it meaning the wall of my kitchen behind the entire ice machine unit. So frustrating! Nice video.

[@MaryDavidson911]

I should also point out that it quit making ice now after that happened

[@rsaalman78]

I would guess that was the coolant. Some part of your cooling system cracked and leaked out

[@RaviStar108]

Hi Ryan, thanks for making a video of how to disassemble the Opal 2.0. I found another video that might help you as well kzbin.info/www/bejne/q2q3m4GKZ8yCh5Isi=hhB72LiCl1QEIyKk This user discovered that the squeaking and black sludge are related issues due to a bushing that is too small. He has an older version of the machine, but the interior is basically the same components, and he shows how to replace the bushing, as well as includes a link to the replacement part. I’ll be using your guide with his contributions to attempt to repair mine in the coming weeks

[@vacazion2425]

What do you by using water filters? Are you dropping some makeshift filter into the top water reservoir or the side tank reservoir? Thanks for your the video, I’m taking mine apart now.

[@rsaalman78]

They sell a water filter for it

[@rsaalman78]

It goes in the tank under the ice bucket. You remove the little screen filter and it goes in there

[@vacazion2425]

Thanks. Saw them on Amazon. Thanks for this break down on this model. I believe my squealing was coming from same cutting screw. The spring was frozen from being calcified from hard water. Soaked it in vinegar and scrubbed with a toothbrush and scraped it with a butter knife to release the spring tension.

[@jessicarubies2256]

I’ve had mine 14 months and it started making the noise too! Wtf. So basically as soon as it’s out of warranty. It’s gonna have issues. Great.

[@BahamianLily]

Exactly, what kind of water were you using?

[@MrMmulch]

We’ve had ours one day and it has started squeaking about every 10 seconds. We are not happy 😡

[@rsaalman78]

Take it back, they are too much to deal with that already

[@daviddimlich3030]

Mine is making the noise after less than 30 days.

[@frankr919]

𝕡𝐫ｏ𝕄ｏ𝔰𝓶 🎶