Russ i,am sorry for your troubles. Russ when the fridge goes into this mode when the fan stops,can you see what the evaporator coil look like. Are the coils frosted or are they sweaty or wet?

Reply to Abbie: Thanks for your condolences. I cannot see the evaporator coils, there is no frost/sweat on the back wall of the freezer.

Reply to Abbie & Richappy: The next time it goes into this mode of operation, I'm going to remove the back wall and check for frost etc, I'll also ckeck to see if there's power to the evaporator motor. If there's power, I'll know the motor is failing intermittanly. If there's no power then I'll need some more suggestions from you guys which I greatly appreciate. Its very difficult to troubleshoot without a wiring diagram.
Regards,

Russ Stevens

That makes a lot of sense, a temporary restriction in the capillary would make the freezer warm and then the evaporator defrost thermostat would open, thus stopping the fan! I had one once, rosin got into the capillary and I blew it out with my propane torch!! In this case, the dryer screen, or lack of one, is not preventing particles from the compressor getting into the capillary tube.
One way to detect this is a overheating compressor, condenser warm, not hot, and low compressor current.

when the evap fan is not running what does the evaporator itself look like ?? is it full of ice ? is the evaporator fan free ?? there is a round device "clipped" on to the evaporator itself and that is called a defrost t-stat or termination defrost t-stat .. ( prevents over heating in defrost ) IT ALSO DOES NOT ALLOW THE EVAPORATOR FAN TO COME ON UNTIL THE EVAPORATOR IS COLD ENOUGH !!! ... check to make sure the evap fan is not getting stuck, heating up and not turning ? also the defrost t-stat should be jumpable , in other words, you could temporarily put a jumper between the wires / plug that supplies voltage to the defrost t-stat (switch) ...

yea.. i think so also.. just does NOT seem like a compressor problem !