After 10 - 15 years sitting idle with a bad fan motor, my Catalina branded (made by Borg/Warner, York) air conditioner is running again.
BIG TEX rides again!
- Thread starter sambootoo
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This AC was in the fellowship hall of the church where my wife and I were married. It was replaced in the mid 80's because of a "noise" it was making. My father in law was able to get it for me. I found some of the refrigerant lines were shifted and rubbing together just enough to make a vibrating noise. A little tweaking and the unit ran like a charm for several years before the fan motor died.
Several times over the years I've thought of selling this for scrap metal, thinking it would never work after sitting out for so long. My son now has a metal working/motorcycle shop and needed some AC to make it bearable on Alabama summer days. He and I pulled this thing out and started to work on it. Main control switch was frozen with rust, corrosion and had to be replaced with a simple toggle switch. Got a new fan motor off Ebay, replaced a couple of capacitors and Big Tex roared back to life!
Notice the Heart of Dixie rust around the data plate. Hard to read this but Catalina was the Brand name for White Auto stores. Big Tex is rated at 25,000 BTU.
The Tecumseh compressor and the original Emerson fan motor both have the number 68 in the model numbers, leading me to think this may be a 1968 year model? I do know that this a 60 something year model.
There was no rust or corrosion on the casing but the paint was peeling badly. Son blasted, sanded and repainted to a like new appearance. The base pan that all the works are attached to was badly rusted, had to be reinforced with new metal. Here's the exterior view as installed in the work shop. Can't see it from the picture, but there's an almost steady stream of condensate flowing from the right hand corner.
A little humor posted on the restroom door of the shop!
Nifty!
Nice to see this thing still has some life left in it. Probably not the most efficient unit around, but for nearly free one can't complain and on a hot, humid day this will make life bearable in the shop.
Now you need to get your son a Norge burpilator washer and matching flocker dryer to take care of shop towels and such, since you obviously have some good B/W karma going on!
Nice to see this thing still has some life left in it. Probably not the most efficient unit around, but for nearly free one can't complain and on a hot, humid day this will make life bearable in the shop.
Now you need to get your son a Norge burpilator washer and matching flocker dryer to take care of shop towels and such, since you obviously have some good B/W karma going on!
Efficient it definitely is not! I would love to find him a BW washer- dryer for washing shop towels and such. Those aren't too common around here, for sure.
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