A piece of styrofoam on condenser causes a rattling noise. Can it be removed? [LG ga-b499yecz]

[Dreadpon]

Hello.
I have an LG ga-b499yecz refrigerator, and since yesterday it started audibly rattling/vibrating.
I removed the back panel, cleaned it, lubed the fan, but the problem seems to be with the small piece of styrofoam on a condenser tube.

When I applied pressure there, rattling noise stopped. I removed it entirely and abnormal noise went away completely.
So the question is, can I use my fridge without this piece? Or does it serve some great purpose? There seems to be some kind of valve/flap on the condenser, but I don't know whether it's dependent of that piece of styrofoam.
Thanks in advance.

[EngineeredAppliance]

The styrofoam is likely there to reduce the noise of refrigerant flow. Kinda of odd that the noise has to do with the styrofoam. The flap looks like it is for the defrost drain. Are you sure the noise isn’t the condenser fan itself? Or even the compressor?

[David1]

I have dealt with this problem many times after sealed system repairs or after somebody levels a fridge. Many of these LG condensors cause an intermittent very loud buzzing noise if the condensor tubing is in contact with the drain pan. The foam is there to stop the condensor tubing from touching the pan... so if you removed it and the noise went away, that means that the foam was holding the tubing in such a way that some other part of the condensor was being pressed against the drain pan.

Usually the noise can be isolated by pressing the red test button on the main control board once in order to put the variable compressor into high speed (test 1), in order to increase vibration of the condensor tubing, and then finding and bending the offending section of condensor tubing so that it does not touch the pan or anything else. The only concern with removīng the styrofoam is that if the condensor tubing is too close to the bottom of the pan it could be submerged in water at times which leads to corrosion and eventually a leaky condensor (after about 10 yrs) in some models that use steel condensor tubing (copper holds up better).

Edited May 21, 2022 by David1