How to properly seal the drain in the refrigerator? And how to clean the condenser coil?

Question

Had a water leak from the fridge (GE GSL25JGDBLS, it's a self-defrosting side-by-side). It worked perfectly for 8 years. Here's what i found inside and in the back:

Pretty sure the culprit was that the drain tube (or plug?) inside was not fully in place (how??why??), so defrost water overspilled into the bottom until there was too much of it and it started leaking when the door is open for too long:

How do I fix the drain in our refrigerator describes a very similar case.

I pushed the plug(?) inside fully in, so that now defrost water should drain through the tube:

That leaves me with 2 questions:

1. How to seal that plug? There is some gummy "ring" around it but it is somewhat too large. Should i use anything else? Bonus: how/why did it pop out like that?

2. How to clean the condenser coil thoroughly? 4 years ago i used a vac and toothbrush (as far as i could reach), it looked a lot worse then. How can I clean the condenser coils on my Maytag freezer states the same question, but it is unanswered. Problem obviously is that the coil cannot be removed without breaking the refrigerant loop. And it is very hard to get to all the spots.

Answer 1

Who knows what caused the plug to pop up possibly ice forming and jacking it up multiple times. The condenser coil can be cleaned with soapy water, don’t use any type of acid cleaner as fridges have aluminum condensers almost always and have for years. I use a foaming non acid coil cleaner but that would make a big mess , simple green and a squirt bottle again you may have a mess but spraying it down is how I clean most of the condensers I work on.

Answer 2

The extra plastic tube that’s popping up is not supposed to be left in the refrigerator after manufacturing. It was just supposed to hold the rubber tube in position until the foam in the liner cured. The extra tube can be removed it was left in by accident at the time of manufacturing.