1958/59 GE Combination Refrigerator

[meauxg]

Hi! We are from Winnipeg Canada and new here and hope we can find some help with our 1958/59 GE Combination Refrigerator. Model # BH13SD1. Serial #0S627108. We purchased it as a running refrigerator, but it does not shut off in a reasonable amount of time. I have replaced the evaporator fan, I have a new temperature control (not the correct one, but it does shut it off at a set temperature). I think that it has “cycle defrost.” I have been unsuccessful looking for a schematic which may give me a clue as to how the defrost works. When plugging it in ,the freezer gets cold, then the coils in the fridge get cold, and then when ice starts forming on the coils, the fridge starts warming. I have had the temperature in the freezer as low as -22F and the fridge as low as 43F, but the compressor stays running. I placed a small fan in the refrigerator moving the air past the coils continuously and got the temperature down to 36F. Wires under the fridge have been spliced together, so I have no idea whether or not they are correct. Does anyone know how “cycle defrost”works and where/how to control it. We love the fridge and would like to use it as the main fridge at our cottage.
Ps I am a carpenter by trade and find electrical challenging. Thanks in advance. Albert

 

[delco1946]

Hello and congratulations. I do think you need to provide a little more information for anyone to make any assessments or suggestions. I have a 57 version of this and the 1958 manual does say that the compressor should be running about half the time at typical ambient temperature room. That is IMO a longer runtime than you’d expect. What you’ve described is not necessarily sound like a problem. if anything, the freezer seems rather cold and working well. Your idea of reasonable might be shorter than designed, so it would be helpful if you could provide actual time measurements.

The defrost also looks similar to mine, which uses A 6 W heater on both the inlet and outlet evaporator tubes which they refer to as the serpentine. When the contacts in the temp control switch open, then electricity will instead pass through any mullions(eg for butter warming etc) as well as the serpentine heaters. I think it’s reasonable for the refrigerator to run most of the time for the first 24 hours after you plug it in and the defrost probably won’t kick in until the morning after. this will be very obvious as all the ice and frost will melt and be visibly dripping into the trough along the back of the refrigerator wall. What setting do you have your temperature control on? The manual suggests a default of five and I find that is perfect for mine.

My refrigerator doesn’t have any fans inside the fresh food cabinet so I’m not sure I understand what you’re referring to. Mine is a forced draft and has a fan to cool the compressor. if you click on the manuals tab of this website, there is a manual for 1958 General Electric refrigerator that would be very helpful for you. It kind of sounds like your refrigerator is working just fine but you should check a couple things. Have you cleaned the dust and hair from underneath on the condenser fins? Does your refrigerator still have the barrier underneath the condenser? There should be one, and mine did not. I think these were probably some sort of hardboard and deteriorated. I fabricated one out of Masonite from the hardware store and slid it under the fins- there is only a couple of brackets that hold it, but it prevents air from getting sucked up from all four sides under the condenser and effectively short-circuiting the purpose of the design. Without this barrier in place you reduce cooling efficiency, and extend run time; with it you in place you force all air to come in from the front of machine over all condensing fins(exactly what you want!), past the fan and sending hot air back out over the evaporator pan.

 

[combo52]

1959 GE bottom freezer frost guard refrigerator

Running too much having trouble getting too cold in the refrigerator.

You've either got a low refrigerant charge or a weak compressor. Bad compressors were given on these refrigerators GE used to design that wore out prematurely. Many of these refrigerators have already had a compressor replaced see if you can determine if the compressor has been replaced already, if so, it may be more likely a low refrigerant charge or possible restriction in which case the filter dryer needs to be replaced and the refrigerator recharged with refrigerant.

These were beautiful well designed great performing refrigerators when they were new, but we find it's very hard to keep them running 60+ years later, if you don't feel able to do refrigeration work try to find a tech that's willing to check it out and possibly fix it, it could be quite expensive to fix. Then you may also want to consider that this uses over three times the power of a similar size new refrigerator, depending on your power costs, etc. you might want to consider that as well.

This refrigerator is different than yours Christopher yours is a manual defrost freezer this one has a fan in the freezer and a hot gas defrost system with a timer and a hydraulic switch that terminates the defrost cycle when the evaporator reaches about 45° in the freezer when defrosting.

 

[delco1946]

Ofta! Glad I stuck with a manual defrost then. That does sound much more complicated and makes sense that it’s using more electricity - I think mine was a wash or maybe resulted in a slight uptick (if I’m being honest with myself ). But, what people don’t seem to factor in is that when you prioritize energy efficiency you sometimes sacrifice doing the job well. And I’ve noticed this refrigerator keeps food much longer than my previous refrigerator from 2016.

I like that your shelves swing out, that was an improvement in terms of functionality although I’m sure a challenge to design to handle all the food weight off to one side.

 

[meauxg]

GE 1959 Refrigerator

Thank you for your reply!!
Delco 1946. My wife purchased the GE manual from this site GE1964-1978 from which I found some general information. We will get the 1958 publication. The fan in the food cabinet that I refer to is a fan that I placed there to try to keep the coils of the condenser free of frost as it seemed that the food compartment stopped cooling once frost formed on the coils. This fridge only has one fan which is underneath by the compressor condenser. I have cleaned the dust from the condenser fins. There is no barrier under them. I will try to remedy that.

Combo52. I will look for signs that the compressor is original or has been replaced. Any suggestions of what to look for? There is no fan in the freezer. This is not a Frost Guard refrigerator, I have not been able to find any kind of timer. The wiring underneath has been modified, so I am not sure if there had been one, I am very interested in finding an electrical schematic. I am hoping there is one in the 1958 publication

Thanks
Albert

 

[combo52]

Late 50s GE bottom freezer refrigerator

Hi Albert, I was confused, this is like Christopher's refrigerator in reply number 2 there is no evaporator fan. You confused me when you said in your post that you had replaced it and I assumed it was a frost guard model as they're the only ones that have an evaporator fan.

Otherwise, my comments supply if the compressor has been replaced, there's usually a paper tag held onto one of the lines on the compressor that list the relay part number, etc. this tag came as part of the replacement compressor.

But it's still likely either a bad compressor or a restricted sealed system or a low charge If it's not cooling properly this refrigerator should not run more than 50% of the time in a 70° room the baffles underneath the condenser doesn't really make any difference except under extreme temperature conditions when you're running at 110° room temperatures it won't improve the performance at normal room temperature.

Energy efficiency in refrigerators versus performance, there has been no trade-off in new refrigerators with their ability to keep food for long periods of time. In fact, newer refrigerators with the thick foam walls, tend to have very even temperatures throughout them. It used to be an older refrigerators like the ones were talking about here you had warm areas at the top of the door shelves, top of the refrigerator, etc. The freezers were also uneven and temperature because there was no fan in them.

John

 

[rp2813]

The replies are definitely causing confusion, particularly regarding fans.  Now that it has been established that this isn't a Frost Guard (which was my immediate suspicion per the OP), I'd like to clarify that non-Frost Guard GE Combinations have just one (external) fan, which creates a "forced draft" to cool the condenser coil, which is located underneath the the freezer section behind the front grille.  The condenser fan  is easily accessed from the rear. 

 

As was stated above, a GE Combination that's not a Frost Guard type doesn't have a fan in either the freezer section or the fresh food section.  IIRC, the serpentine evaporator coil temperature ranges from roughly -13F to +32F.  At +32, the cold control should kick in and call for cooling.  When the serpentine coil reaches -13F, the cold control will stop the cooling process.  This is the typical operating sequence once the unit has been operating/cycling for at least 24 hours if not longer.  I don't think aiming a fan at the serpentine evaporator coil is a viable solution to the problem.

 

[combo52]

Cycle defrost cold control temperatures

Hi Ralph, the temperature of the cold control when the unit shuts off could be anywhere from several degrees above 0 like you said to maybe 13° below zero, the critical thing is they never come back on until it's around 36°F 32° is too close to the freezing point of water and doesn't allow a complete defrosting of the coil.

John

 

[delco1946]

The 1958 manual includes electrical schematics and tons of diagnostic info . I’d go thru the manual check list and start with the easiest things first - clear air flow, check the baffle etc which the manual diagnostics will have you check. Also check the door seals which if old will leak and force the unit to run more frequently. One of my seals was original and not working well and the other was replaced decades ago but still not working great. The freezer floor also will likely have a divot that you pour water in, when empty cold air, can just directly flow through that so check for that, too.

 

[delco1946]

Also just because it caused so many problems for me, make sure the drain water is flowing thru the hose and in back and down to the pan by the fan. Mine was clogged and was overflowing in to the cabinet for years and no one bothered to notice or fix it causing a nightmare for me.

 

[meauxg]

1959 GE Combination Refrigerator

Thanks for your insightful comments. I will purchase the 1958 GE book today. The fridge is in my shop which is about 50 degrees F. I talked to a neighbour who thinks he can measure the pressure. I guess that will tell me the condition of the compressor?? I will clarify about the fan in the fridge area; I placed the stand alone fan in the fridge area to see if air movement would eliminate the frost buildup on the coils, in turn getting it colder in the fridge area. It seemed to me that there was a correlation between frost on the coils and the fridge not continuing to get colder. Thanks again everyone for your experience and interest! I'll post what my friend finds out when he tests the pressure.

Albert

 

[combo52]

Compressor performance check

The only proper way to access whether the compressor is performing properly is to pinch off the section line and take a reading with the compressor running. It should be able to pull nearly a 30 inch vacuum. This is outlined in the GE service manual.

There's a special tool to access the compressor low side on a GE refrigerator to do this so you don't have to cut into the system.

If the compressor passes this test, then you have a restriction at the filter dryer or a low charge which those are both fixable without changing the compressor with the compressor can't pass the performance check you need to adapt a different compressor into the refrigerator, you can use a compressor from an R134 refrigerator but it takes some work to adapt it into these older boxes

John

 

[meauxg]

1959 GE Combination fridge

I now have the 1958 GE book which has been a great addition to information, My friend came to check the vacuum, but was unable to as his tools are not compatible. He assured me that my compressor was working because of the temperatures that it was generating in the refrigerator. I will post a picture of my compressor. I have installed a baffle between the condenser and the floor to direct the air from the fan over the condenser to work as originally designed. I have installed a 1/2” magnetic strip inside the original weatherstrip to tighten the door seal. The wiring has been somewhat modified previously. I do not have a guardette and the wire colours are not the same as in figure 154. I will try running the fridge again this evening after it has been vertical for 24 hours.
Delco1946, I will check that drain hose you speak of and add water to the drain in the freezer. Thanks for that!
Albert

 

[combo52]

1958 GE bottom freezer refrigerator

Somebody has added a clamp on access valve on the suction line already so you can check the vacuum just by attaching your gauges to that port. You have to pinch the copper line completely on the right side of that clamp on access valve. It's a special tool to pinch the copper line tightly and then reformat without cutting it.

Unless you turned the refrigerator on its side to work on it when it was running immediately beforehand, there is no need to let it stand upright for 24 hours before turning it on, that's an old wise tale. You won't find that in any service manual you can set it up and plug it in immediately just like when you buy a new refrigerator you can lay them on their side for shipping and set them up and plug them in. The trick is if the refrigerator is running and cold, allow it to warm up inside before you lay it on its side.

John