Adding oil to vintage refrigerators

[Vintagelectric]

Hi
When I say add oil I mean how much to add with refrigerant when refilling after evacuating and vacuuming out the system. I have a 52 ge combo and a mid 40s early 50s wards (frigidaire) single door that both need refrigerant. The compressors on both run very quiet, I let both run for about 2 hours since they've been unplugged for years. The frigidaire wards has the famous meter miser compressor which I heard the refrigerant can settle and need to run for quite some time before it cools but I figure after 2 hours it would do something. I bought bullet pierce valves a vacuum pump, r 12 gauges and 3 14 oz cans of r12 and 2 12 oz cans with oil. I also thought of getting red angel AC stop leak and an injector they claim it's a nontraditional stop leak that acts as a lubricant until it finds a leak.My question is how much oil does a refrigerator generally use? The ge is a split system uses 10oz r12 for the primary system but the amount for the secondary is rubbed off the tag. GE Model ah-83-aa16. And the frigidaire uses I believe 26 oz r 12. If anybody has any info on how much refrigerant the secondary system uses on the ge and how much oil these take I would greatly appreciate any info. The wards frigidaire is a O5DOS970A. I just thought of getting the stop leak since they say the only way refrigerant gets out of a sealed system is from a leak. With the cost of r 12 and the company claiming this stop leak is basically used as a preventative I thought it would be worth a try.

Mike

 

[combo52]

Adding Oil To A Vintage Refrigerator

Unless you see evidence of a large oil leak I would not try adding ANY OIL.

 

I don't believe the secondary sealed system on the GE Combination is considered serviceable [ I have also never seen one that lost the refrigerant. ] I have seen a lot of these GE Combinations that have big refrigerant leaks in the primary evaporator tubing behind the evaporator service panel on the back of the ref.

 

If these old refs cannot hold a good vacuum overnight don't try recharging them until you locate and fix the leaks.

 

John L.

 

[Vintagelectric]

Adding oil to a vintage refrigerator

Thanks for the reply
Yea I've heard the secondary isn't servicable. I think the GE has some refrigerant in it because I can hear what sounds like water dripping in the freezer which I believe is refrigerant in the evaporator. But the wards just runs. I figure once I get the valves in I can check the refrigerant levels like I said it sounds like the GE may have some refrigerant but I let it run for 2 hours but the temperature on the freezer thermometer actually went up due to the mullion heater. do these operate strictly off the oil that is in the compressor? I'm still learning about these because an older retired gentleman told me the only affordable way to get these working is to do it myself. The property owner who let me have them said the last time there was power to the property they were working fine, the GE was still plugged in. But that was 20+ years ago. I've heard some people talk about how their vintage fridge being unplugged somehow caused it to lose its charge and that a top off has kept it going ever since. I can tell the GE was pretty elegant back in its day a separate freezer and even has a butter conditioner in the door. If they can be saved i want to restore them and use them as regular refrigerators.

 

[travis]

Mike,

 

Go to the forum below and register.  There's a member named coldspaces that I am sure will offer some advice.

 

Sometimes compressor leak around the electrical terminals.  Everything eventually breaks down with ago.  John is correct that you have to make sure the system holds a vacuum.  Otherwise you're destroying the environment.

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[Vintagelectric]

Thanks for the info. I'm going to make sure to pull a vacuum before I add any r 12 due to the ozone depletion it causes and the cost.