The short answer
A cabinet of this generation with a plumbed ice maker has a mechanical bail arm and a small-bore supply, and both of them fail before the module does. Ranked first on this platform: The ice maker is switched off. The checks below follow that ranking, and the first of them need no tools and no panel removed.
What you observe
- No ice at all, with no sound of a cycle and a bin that stays empty — A complete absence of any activity is far more often a switch than a failure.
- No ice, and the dispenser gives no water either if the cabinet has one — When both water functions are dead at once, the cause is upstream of both.
- A slab of ice under or behind the ice maker and an empty bin — Ice in the wrong place plus no ice in the right one is the signature of this fault exactly.
- NEAR MISS — the ice is there but stuck together in one block — Clumping is a melt-and-refreeze symptom: the freezer temperature or the door seal, not the ice maker.
Causes, most likely first on this platform
- The ice maker is switched off — Every automatic ice maker has an off position — a bail arm lifted, a switch on the module or a setting on the display. It ranks first on this platform because the bail arm on this platform is a wire lever inside the bin that gets lifted by a bag of frozen food and left there, and it stops the whole cycle with nothing wrong anywhere in the machine.
- The water supply to the appliance is off or restricted — The cabinet is fed by a small valve behind or under it that somebody shut for a plumbing job, a saddle valve that has silted up, or a line kinked when the cabinet was last pulled out. It ranks second here because a cabinet of this vintage has wear on everything at once, which changes the ranking: the parts that wear are far more likely than the parts that break.
- A frozen fill tube — The fill tube carries water the last few inches into the mould, and it is in the coldest part of the cabinet. It sits third because the causes above it account for more of these cases, not because it is unlikely.
Check in this order, and why
- Look at the bail arm or the ice maker switch before anything else — It is free, it takes ten seconds, and it is the single most common answer. It leads because it tests the top-ranked cause.
- Find the shut-off valve behind or under the cabinet and check it is fully open — It answers half the possible causes in one move. Tests the second-ranked cause.
- Look behind and under the ice maker for a solid tongue of ice — Visible in one look, and it explains the whole complaint. Tests the third-ranked cause.
What an owner can safely check
- Lower the bail arm or switch the ice maker on, and allow a full day before judging it — A cold start takes hours; people switch it on, look an hour later and conclude it is broken.
About 10 min
- Trace the line from the valve to the cabinet and straighten any kink you find — Look especially at the loop behind the cabinet, which gets crushed every time it is pushed back.
About 20 min
- STOP before anything behind a fixed panel, and note what each check showed — Everything past this line is measured rather than looked at, and measuring it safely needs the power off and a meter.
Before you work on the water side
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel — a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off.
When to call a technician
Call when the water is arriving and the ice maker still will not cycle, or when the ice maker has to come out to reach the fill tube or the mould heater.
Nearest pages of this class
What this page does not cover
This page is written for the Moffat refrigerator as a class, not for one family or one model line. Where a family- or model-specific page exists for your unit, that page is the more specific answer and the one to read first. Deliberately not here: part numbers, wiring colours and disassembly order, which differ by family.
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
