1962 GE Spacemaker tc-469 defrost timer

[mixrman]

Hi! Your refrigerator looks just like ours- but opens on the other side - sorry to read about your troubles in the other post. I hope you can get the fan situation resolved. I have been amazed at how many people on this site have this particular model fridge and are working hard to keep them going. Unfortunately, mine is still not working properly (the replacement defrost timer must be a dud) and my wife is about to go into meltdown about it (she is lobbying to buy a new one just about every other day now...). Other than the defrost cycle not working- there is nothing wrong with the fridge! My source for parts has been eBay as the nearest parts store in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which used to be very friendly and helpful - is neither any longer. There is someone who has promised to come look at it next time he is in the area - I hope that soon comes to pass. The manual was given to me by a man (now deceased) who had a GE appliance dealership in Eutaw, Alabama since the 1940s. He let me go through his old manuals and get any that referred to appliances I own. I wonder if I could ask you a favor- would you take a photo of the inside of the top door? Mine is missing the bar over the butter conditioner, and I would like to see what one looks like. Thanks - let me know if I can be of any help. - John

 

[kelly0721]

Photo Inside Top Door

Hi John,

Here is a photo of the inside of the door for you. I need to find new bars for the door myself. When I first got the refrigerator it was so filthy I threw some of the parts in the dishwasher and it ruined them, which is why there is a white film on the bars. I seriously regret that decision.

My repairman just left a little while ago. Apparently, the wiring is a mess and has to be rewired so the fan can be connected. The overload is broken too, so that has to be replaced. After he has all that taken care of then we will address replacing the compressor with one that was recommended by Combo52 (John) way back when I first purchased the refrigerator. I had printed out his recommendation for the first repairman, but he apparently was not willing to take anyone else's advice and installed this crappy Panasonic compressor I did not want. Hopefully, it will be fixed soon so I can finally bring it into the kitchen instead of having it sit in the garage.

Kelly

 

[mixrman]

Kelly:
Thank you so much for posting the photo of the bars. I wondered what it was supposed to look like. Combo52 mentioned once that if I could send a photo- perhaps he could help locate something like it. Our defrost timer is not working- and wife is getting very annoyed about manual defrosting every few days. Yikes! She dragged me around town looking a new refrigerators last week - I am getting worried! Let me know if you need a copy of the manual (I made one for someone else for the cost of copies and shipping (I think it came to $7). It also has the nomenclature for the serial number - so you can decipher exactly when it was made!
John

 

[turbokinetic]

Update on the Defrost Problem.....

Hey folks.  Today I was able to make a visit to John's home and troubleshoot the Spacemaker defrost problem.

 

The reason that previous remote troubleshooting attempts had been fruitless became obvious.  One, the defrost coil was burned open preventing the defrost function from happening at all.  The second issue was an improper prior repair. There were two wires tied together behind the rear cover, causing the fans to run all the time; even when the defrost control was calling for defrost mode to be active. This prevented the expected operation when the control was manually advanced. The control would click but the fans would not stop.

 

Using the service manual, it was apparent what sort of closed or open circuits we should see with the defrost control removed. There was a short between two of the wires, bypassing the defrost control. Searching for that led to discovery of the bodge job behind the rear cover.

 

The wire going to the defrost coil its self was also reading open circuit. That was when I located the charred defrost coil.

 

Another interesting finding was that the compressor had been replaced. It is an original type GE part, but it has the more modern 3-wire configuration instead of the 4-wire setup originally on the refrigerator. I'm not sure if the fan bypass was made when the 3-wire fan (which works with the original compressor) was changed to a 2-wire fan; but it was definitely not correct.

 

 I have a feeling that the fans failing to stop during defrost could have caused very long defrost cycles. That's because the fan would have been dissipating the heat and blowing cold air across the coils while they were trying to warm up. This could have allowed the defrost solenoid to remain on too long too many times and possibly shortened its life.

 

So, now I am looking for a defrost coil. The original is badly burned. I'm not sure it would be feasible to deconstruct and determine the number of winding wraps in it; to rewind it. I did find a washing machine water fill coil which seems to be a close match, as far as the physical dimensions. What I'm hoping is, that someone here knows the specs on that coil, such as the resistance, or number of winding turns and wire gauge. 

 

We may try the washing machine coil, but it will be an hour drive each way for me. I would like some specs to compare it against.

 

Sincerely,

David

 

 

 

 

[mixrman]

It was such a pleasure to meet David today- and I appreciate so much his expertise and assistance. I was amazed when he discovered the incorrectly done repair - and a few other things that needed to be corrected! There is no telling for how many years the problems existed - yet the machine continued to run for the 20 years I have had it! I hope he is successful in finding the necessary part so my favorite refrigerator will run again! Thank you, David!

 

[combo52]

Great progress on Johns GE TC469 frig .

 

I am so glad that David was able to tear into your frig and figure out what is wrong. the problems he uncovered shows why it is often difficult to help someone fix something without actually seeing it, especially an older appliance where its impossible to know what has been done to it over the years.

 

A WP ice machine defrost coil should work on this frig, you should also be able to modify a standard 12 hour defrost timer to shorten the 25 minute defrost period to about 10 minutes so you can keep this frig defrosting properly for many years to come.

 

John L.

 

[turbokinetic]

Hi John - thanks for the reply!  I had a feeling we would encounter something along these lines (changed wiring etc.) which was at the root of the problem.

As for the WP defrost coil; I'm not as "in the loop" as you are with the current equipment. Would it be possible for you to give a little more information on that coil? We have a couple appliance places here but they are the type who automatically say "no" until you convince them they probably have it. The more info the better. Today will be my last opportunity to assist with this fridge before a 3 week period of unavailability.

 

Thankfully John has two NOS defrost thermal/timer controls. We should be able to get it working 100% original configuration. If not, then the timer you suggest will be the next step.

 

Thanks again!

 

 

[turbokinetic]

Got it going!

So; today I went to a couple of supply places and was able to find a solenoid coil. It wasn't the ice machine coil John L recommended. They could get that one but didn't stock it.

 

The one I ended up with; was the only 120VAC coil they had in stock, so I got it and figured what the heck, it should be adaptable.

 

There was one trick. The original coil had a steel sleeve inside it, on one end only. That sleeve is apparently there to concentrate the magnetic force where it is needed to actuate the valve. It was more convenient to install the new coil and re-use this sleeve as a spacer at the bottom. With that configuration, it did not work. The coil got power, but the valve didn't open.  After studying the old solenoid and noticing the "TOP" markings, I realized the error and flipped over the new coil, and it would work correctly.

 

The defrost controller also seems to be working. We let the fridge cool down to where the temperature sensing bulb was <span style="font-size: 12pt;">below the 55<span style="font-size: large;">°<span style="font-size: medium;">F defrost-complete temperature. After that, it was manually cycled around until the defrost mode kicked in. The fans stopped, and the defrost valve opened. After about 2 or 3 minutes, the system tripped back into cooling mode, and the fans started up. So; it seems to be working!</span></span></span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As with any repair like this; time will tell. Hopefully it's a very longterm fix for the GE.</span></span></span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In the attached pictures, the new wiring is all blue. However, the white sleeves on the ends are markers with the color name and the connection point as listed in the manual.

The page of the manual shown, indicates with an X where the wiring was cut, and the hand-drawn red line shows where they had tied together the two circuits, thereby bypassing the defrost control.</span></span></span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The red tag is the replacement compressor tag, which was on the compressor currently in the unit. </span></span></span>

 

<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Sincerely,</span></span></span>

<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: medium;">David</span></span></span>

 

[sfh074]

All sounds like ......

child's play for David! Way to go David, great job helping to keep another vintage fridge running.

I would like to give a proper thank you to David as well for helping me a few months back with my 55 Philco fridge. Not personalized service like mixrman got, but great advice thru email to help me repair my Philco that had lost its charge. If it hadn't been for David telling me about the R152A trick (canned air), I would have went down the R12 road thinking R12 would've been the only option!

BTW, he has a couple of great youtube videos showing how R152A is a great substitute for R12, not to mention dirt cheap compared to R12.

Thanks again David for the great info. I highly recommend you subscribe to his youtube channel.

Bud - Atlanta[this post was last edited: 7/20/2019-05:28]

 

[combo52]

Great Save David

The Hot-Gas-Defrost GE Frost Guard Refrigerators from 1961-1970 are about the best vintage fully self-defrosting refrigerators you can own and actually use today if you want a 60s era refrigerator.

 

These refrigerators were primarily bottom freezer models, there were also a few top-freezer models that had a 2nd evaporator coil in the top-back of the FF area that are also pretty good refrigerators.

 

The larger bottom freezer 19 CF and Americana models seem to be the most desirable refrigerators because they have foam insulation already which not only makes them more efficient but are less likely to have water in the insulation problems.

 

Their one big weakness was compressors that would wear out and loose compression on models built before and around 1964, after this time GE really improved the durability of their compressors.

 

This one that David fixed for John had a new compressor many years ago, if you are buying an earlier one of these refrigerators look foe the red compressor tag that came with the replacement compressors.

 

 

Hopefully you will get some good service out of this refrigerator John and a big Thank You David for being able rescue it for you.

 

John L.

 

[turbokinetic]

Thanks Bud; and John, for the positive feedback. This forum has a lot of people who are very willing to share info and help others in need. The wealth of information here makes this a very valuable resource!  With the info here, and the manuals we had (also available here); there was nothing difficult about troubleshooting this. It further drives home the sad fact that today's professional technicians seem unable to read and comprehend service literature; and are only able to do things they have been shown by another.

 

One thing I did notice about this fridge is the power density of the compressor. It is relatively small, but has quite a high power capacity.  One thing that working in industry has taught me is, the more power-dense a machine is, the more closely it needs to be watched for problems. I see how this compressor would rapidly overheat severely if the fan were to become inoperative. I know comparing commercial to home equipment is not a fair comparison, but I have no other reference to go on.  Frigidaire used a similarly high-powered compressor in the water-bath Coca-Cola cooler I recently refurbished. That one had a high temperature shutdown switch attached to the compressor discharge line. It would stop the unit in the event that the discharge temperature got too high. The original one was a manual-reset melting alloy device. So, once it tripped it required intervention to reset.

This was broken and bypassed, so I had to research a replacement. We found a modern equivalent clip-on high temp safety switch to use on the compressor. It is a normally-closed temperature switch which will open at a predetermined high temperature. I have a feeling this could help mitigate damage to these GE Spacemaker compressors in the event the evaporator fan stopped. It would stop the compressor before it reached such an overload state that the motor protector tripped.

It is also very easy to make a buzzer configuration which will alarm when the motor overload (or high temp switch) were to trip.

 

[mixrman]

David:

I can't thank you enough for all you did to get our fridge running again! Even Linda- who initially wanted to replace it with a new model- is happy to have our old friend working (actually- I think she has come to appreciate the old appliances more as a result all she learned through this experience - including having new appliance salesmen in two stores strongly encourage us to do everything possible to repair the old one rather than buy a new one [that says a lot about what is out there today!]). I am certain I would not have discovered or even noticed some of the issues you quickly and expertly identified. Clearly- with my previous efforts I failed to notice all the extra and unnecessary wires that were left in place after the long-ago compressor swap!

Thanks also to all who weighed in and shared their valuable expertise in diagnosing the problem and finding a way to make the repair. It is great to be a member of a group that truly appreciates vintage appliances and is dedicated to keeping them working!

So- the old GE TC-469 Spacemaker, manufactured the month and year of my birth, is again humming away in the kitchen as it did for 20 the first 20 years I had it!

-John

 

[rp2813]

Another Outcome Worth Celebrating!

It's threads like this that make automaticwasher.org my favorite site to visit in the whole worldwide web.

 

[combo52]

Reply # 29 Hi Power Compressor

Hi David, Great observation, however all similar sized refrigerators and freezers built in the US from the early 60s-the 70s have similar  powerful compressors, and they all have an overload protector that quickly will shut-down the compressor if it actually starts to over heat from things like a stalled condenser fan etc.

 

You have been spoiled by working on many of the early 1920s-1940s refrigerators you have been restoring, these earlier refrigerators  have truly neat very under stressed compressors that did their job perfectly and never even worked up a sweat. It is almost hard to imagine one of these earlier designs ever overheating.

 

Home refrigeration compressors really started to get much better in the 90s and onward. With the addition of running capacitors and other efficiency improvements modern compressors do the same work in even slightly smaller shells while using at least 100 watts less power, which translates into around 300 less BTUs being put off by the condenser as heat into the room.

 

John L.

 

[kelly0721]

Photos of Fridge

Hey Mixrman,

It was my pleasure to post the photos. I am so glad you were able to get your refrigerator fixed! I ended up purchasing a manual for my repairman to be sure he had the correct wiring diagrams. I found it on Amazon of all places! Thank you so much for offering though!

 

[spacepig]

Kelly,

Wow, I never thought to check Amazon for service manuals. If you would consider making copies of yours, I'd be happy to pay for cost. I have a '61 manual, but 2 '64s and 1 '65 GE fridge, so would love any additional info. Jeannine

 

[kelly0721]

I was surprised that I was able to find it on Amazon too! I would be happy to have copies made for you. I have a little copier here, but it would take forever and it probably would not be very good quality. I will let you know when I am able to get out and have the copies done.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Hi Kelly. If you are going to make copies of that manual I would certainly be interested in acquiring one. Be more than happy to compensate you for your time and expense. Thanks!

 

[kelly0721]

Sure thing. I will get two copies made when I am out and about in the next week or so. I have a lot going on right now, but will try to get it done. It's the least I can do for the folks on this site who have been so helpful!

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Thanks Kelly. Just send me a message with the particulars.