Newcomer here, desperately looking for some help as my fridge freezer has failed and I am expecting guests tomorrow. Not an engineer or an electrician but I have a good technical brain for a pleb and have researched as much as I can, so I hope this makes sense.

The problem is the evaporator fan. Usually, when the unit tries to start up, the fan comes on for a second, followed by about four clicks, and then goes off. This repeats every ten minutes or so.

If I bypass the evaporator fan, by keeping the fridge door open, the unit runs for a long time until it eventually cuts out (presumably through overheating... I'm not keen to repeat this test as I don't want to wreck the condenser).

The evaporator coil did have small solid chunks of ice in it, but these have mostly defrosted off now. The last time I tried to turn the unit on, it did run for about five or ten minutes, with the evaporator fan spinning nicely, before the clicking noise sounded again.

I have checked all the air inlets and outlets and they seem clear as far as I can tell from sticking my fingers into them.

Any ideas why the evaporator fan keeps stalling? Please help!

Thanks,
Lulu