60’s GE Refrigerator freezer freezes refrigerator doesn’t refrigerate.

[dalangdon]

Hi everybody,,

I have a GE pre frost-free refrigerator, single door, with freezer inside. The freezer works great, but the refrigerator doesn’t cool. Any ideas as to what may be going on? I hate to scrap it, because it is cosmetically beautiful, and has the lazy Susan shelves.

[this post was last edited: 6/16/2020-15:36]

 

[turquoisedude]

Dan, how cold are the freezer and refrigerator sections getting?  

 

Really, really dumb question, but is there a drawer underneath the freezer called a chiller tray?  If there is, pop this out and check if there is a flap on the back of it. I grew up with a 57 single-door GE and it had a flap that you would open for defrosting and warmer refrigerator temps and close for cooler refrigerator temps...  Long shot, but have a look at this.  

 

[dalangdon]

No tray (I had thought of that as well). The freezer is at 20, but the refrigerator is at 60. Here’s some more pictures. I don’t know why they are all rendering sideways.

 

[turquoisedude]

OH!  way fancier than the one I grew up with!  It's got the true zero-degree freezer.  I can only think that there may be a plugged line somewhere in the cooling system and not enough refrigerant is getting into the refrigerator section... 

 

Another dumb question - could the light switch on the door be wonky and leaving the bulb on continously?  This was an issue I had with that '64 Frost Guard that I gave up on - the light in the freezer section stayed on and was enough to warm it up!  

 

PS - I have issues with my pictures loading sideways.  Robert will twitch his nose and make them right, though... LOL

 

[rp2813]

Hey Dan, good to see you posting here again!

 

I'm pretty sure your fridge uses the same system as the two-door frosts-freely Combinations from the same period, if that's any help.  If the fridge isn't running more frequently and longer during each cycle, then it's probably not a compressor issue.   Paul may be on the right track with suggesting a blockage of some sort.  It doesn't take much to screw things up based on videos David (turbokinetic) has posted here.

 

The cold controls on GE's from this period are notorious for failure.  I had to replace the original one on my '57 Combination, but it was doing the opposite -- keeping things too cold because it wouldn't cycle off.  Have you tried adjusting to the coldest setting to see what happens?

 

I would love to find a fridge like yours to use for drinks and overflow.  Either David or John L. will likely have some advice to share that I hope will keep your fridge running for another 60 or so years.

 

Ralph 

 

 

 

[twintubdexter]

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Those GE's with the cabinet light behind the name and logo always looked so cool. I cleaned up a ton of them for resale. Way back then they almost always worked fine. Good luck getting yours operating properly. </span>

 

[twintubdexter]

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Those GE's with the cabinet light behind the name and logo always looked so cool. I cleaned up a ton of them for resale. Way back then they almost always worked fine. Good luck getting yours operating properly. </span>

 

[dalangdon]

Thanks, Everybody!

Ralph, by "cold control" do you mean thermostat?

If it is a blockage, how would one go about unblocking it?

 

[rp2813]

Yes Dan, the cold control is the thermostat.  If you remove the wires and bypass it, you might be able to diagnose whether or not the thermostat is working properly, or if you have a bigger problem.

 

I don't know if there's any way to resolve a blockage without opening up the sealed system, or how it would be accomplished outside the sealed system given the GE Combination's design.  There are some very small parts and passages that don't take much to clog, but how a sealed system can become blocked I don't know. 

 

The problem could be something else outside of the sealed system.  I would start with the thermostat. 

 

Let's hope the troubleshooters chime in here with some suggestions for other things to check.

 

[dlb]

I have zero experience with fridges this old so forgive me if my questions/suggestions are stupid.

I recently restored a 1976 Moffat fridge that had a similar problem -- cold freezer, warm fridge. The cause was that the cooling fins were frosted over, and that frost prevents the fins from cooling effectively. They could still work well enough to keep the freezer cold but not enough for the fridge compartment. In my case, this was happening because the defrost timer was broken and not cycling on to defrost the fins periodically.

So I guess my question would be, does your fridge automatically defrost itself? I know that pre-auto defrost, you had to manually do this, I assume by unplugging it for a while and catching the drips but I'm not sure about this.

Perhaps try manually defrosting it and see if it runs properly after that.

 

[rp2813]

Contrary to GE's claim

 . . . the subject refrigerator isn't frost-free.  GE Combination models from 1948 - 1965 or so are a favorite of mine.  Dan's fridge looks like a '55 to me.

 

It's my understanding that even though it's a single-door model, the freezer section is autonomous, the same as would be the case for the two-door Combinations, but it's not frost-free.   There are no fins or fans creating airflow between the freezer and fresh food sections.  The fresh food section has its own cooling coil.  That coil defrosts automaticcally every time the compressor cycles off.   

 

Somehow GE forgot they put a freezer in these cabinets with their "no more defrosting" marketing verbiage.   To their credit, they provided a handy drain in the freezer floor which routed defrost water to a collecting pan underneath the cabinet.  This makes defrosting much easier.

 

[dalangdon]

Here’s what the refrigerator coils look like.