The refrigerator is a Whirlpool Gold about 4 years old, with freezer
below and regular section above. It iced up in the freezer section
and the other section quit cooling.
CY: Air flow blocked with ice.

Whirlpool serviceman came and
checked components and said it was the heater timer which cycles every
8 hours, but he didn't have one. I asked him how hard it would be for
me to put it in so that we could save another $150 service charge
CY: Wow, hundred and a half for a house call? I've got to raise my rates.


and
he showed me how easy it was. So we ordered the part, made in Mexico
(cost about $60), and it came a week later.
CY: Sixty? That's more than I get.

In the meantime we got the
fridge working so the non-freezer section stayed around 40. I had
turned it off to allow the coils and fins to thaw.
CY: Hope over night, wtih a fan blowing into the freezer section. They can
really get thick with ice. I'm guessing you didn't get it all.

This morning, as the temp rose to 50 in the regular cooling section
because the freezer was iced up again, I replaced the timer -- an easy
job but you must have nimble fingers to get the screws back in.

Question: How long before the fridge gets back to normal? It's iced
up now and so how long will it take for the heater to start removing
the ice from the coils.
CY: The heater only runs 25 or so minutes every cycle, so it isn't likely to
get caught up with a solid block of ice. You'll have to leave it open (and
unplugged, and a fan blowing into the freezer) probably over night.



I turned the timer's red knob until I heard
it click before installing it, so I'm guessing that THAT means the
heating cycle started as soon as I plugged the fridge back up.
CY: There are a couple different clicks.

Should
I have waited with the fridge unplugged until the ice melted,
CY: Yes.

or will
the poor little thing stabilize itself and start doing its duty as a
frostfree refrigerator, with both compartments at their proper
temperature?
CY: Probably not.

It's been two hours, and the fridge is running, but I
don't see the temperature dropping in the non-freezer section. It's
still on 50.

Thanks in advance and you have some good and very helpful reading in
this newsgroup. I'm sure there is some helpful soul here who can
advise what to do.
CY: total, thorough defrost of the freezer.