Help me Refrigerate my new Bar!

[jeremy]

Hello again,

I live in the Southern suburbs of Adelaide, around Noarlunga.

Not sure what a capacitor would look like on an old fridge but I dont see any componentry between the power and the fan. On the side of the compressor there is a little black box which may contain a capacitor, and I am not in front of it right now but I am 90% that this is bypassed completely by the wire leading to the (condensor?) fan. There is another big black cylinder adjacent, and connected to, the fan, but although this looks like a massive capacitor I assume thats not what it is...

The little black box next to the compressor (and something that looks a little bit like a capacitor):



Inside the little black box (bad pic sorry):



Another thing which I have no idea of the purpose...



The base/side/motor of the fan:



A view of the Power In part of the assembly and a couple of gauges. Note that all different bits are just split directly from the power supply, the orange cord goes directly to a regular power plug. There are four wires leading off from this, one to the fan, one to the compressor (via the little black box) and one to each of the gauges:



Another side view of the power split, you can see what I mean about expecting at least one component to fire up when I plug it in, again, orange is direct to a power plug:



Cheers for the interest mate!

Jeremy.

 

[mrsupraboy]

The cap may be faulty and u will probably find its for both the compressor and the fan. Wouldn't surprise me. Do u have a multi meter

 

[jeremy]

Nah I don't unfortunately. I have a mate that is a sparky coming round for dinner on Saturday night, I might be able to talk him into bringing some tools!

If each component is individually replaceable I am happy to give that a try. There must be loads of second hand ones out there, or would it be difficult to find ones that match?

Another question, if I Google the model of the compressor (CAE41ZF11) I can see that it uses R12 refrigerant. In this case is it a waste of time to try to restore this, or is it possible to convert to a new refrigerant or still purchase R12?

 

[mrsupraboy]

Easier to buy a new system then replacing the compressor. U still can get r12 gas tho. Get him to check the capacitor.

 

[jeremy]

Hi all,

So my mate brought round a multi-meter the other day and we got a little too busy drinking beer and forgot to test it... Bugger. However he did make one rather useful discovery just by taking a quick look and that was that the components were not all individually wired to the plug as I first suspected but daisy chained one after another. As such any faulty component may cause all other components to cease to function. A test with the multimeter would have been useful but I am thinking maybe I can bypass each component one by one and see if I can get anything to make a noise. Might be worth a shot.

With any luck it will be the thermostat, I could just remove that and run it off my tempmate couldnt I?

Cheers,

Jeremy.

 

[H0U5ECAT]

Easiest way to find out what is wrong with it is to get a quote from a fridge mechanic.
IMO, just leave it to the mechanic. If you don't seal up the tubing or stuff the compressor, its going to cost you (and your health) in the long run.
R12 gas isn't cheap.

 

[jeremy]

Hi guys,

OK so I managed to get the compressor running!

I was going to start bypassing components such as the thermostat to see if I could get anything to fire up when I took a closer look at the little gauges on the end of the setup. One is indicative of pressure, the other of temperature. So presumably one is the thermostat, the other is maybe a cut out for when the gas pressure drops too low?



In any case there were screws on the top of each gauge which adjusted the dials, so I plugged it in, switched it on, and turned the temperature down to its lowest setting, as I dialed it down I heard an audible click. So then I dialed down the pressure gauge to its lowest setting, I heard another click and the whole thing came to life. The big fan fired up and the compressor started to purr. As far as I could tell it sounded fine, no clunks, no bangs, it sounded like a fridge in perfect working order.

So as not to inhale a gallon of leaking refrigerant I didn't leave it on for very long (although there probably wasnt much left in it), but as I say it purred like a kitten.

So my assumption now is that the thermostat is not functioning correctly because the wire has been cut (not sure how thermostats work but it just seems to be a length of thick wire running from the gauge through into the cabinet), and/or the pressure gauge has shut it all off automatically due to the fact that there is no gas pressure.

Presumably there is also a leak somewhere in the system that is not related to the cut pipes because the compressor was apparently not running before the pipes were cut, and no gas escaped when they were cut (based on what I have been told). So I guess we need to get the pipes re-soldered, get the thing tested for leaks, and get it re-gassed.

 

[mrsupraboy]

Ur better of getting a fridge mechanic to look at it mate. U could possibly still save it bit if u don't play around with it. without understanding what you are doing u could cause more damage

 

[michaeld16]

Low pressure switch no gas so nothing running. Probably a leak somewhere in that evaporator i bet the u bends on the copper pipe are green and pitted

 

[michaeld16]

Just realised this threads date lol, hope ya got it sorted mate would make a great bar