GE Wall Refrigerator - pink - thoughts?

[repairguy]

Shawn thanks so much for posting about the washer and dryer. The owner called this afternoon and amazingly enough a shipper was in Los Angeles and able to pick them up this afternoon. Nothing usually works out like that did. They are on their way to southeast Texas. I’m glad you are going to get the refrigerator.

 

[DADoES]

 
Seems Melvin is on the way toward becoming a serious machinery collector ...   ;-)

Yay!

 

[surfit]

Nice. Congrats on it working out! I was there when they were loading them up.

I turned on the fridge. As Delco mentioned, it was turned off. Well, I couldn’t believe it. The fridge turned on with a slight hum. The freezer side was frigid in about 5 minutes, but the refrigerator side didn’t get any cooler. All in all, VERY happy since it seems I have a functioning compressor?

I wonder why half would get cold and half wouldn’t.

And the estate manager sent me a pic of the original owner. Pretty great.

 

[delco1946]

Woohoo! I am happy to hear that. Excellent news! Make sure you don’t use it unless you had it sitting upright in transit.

The freezer compartment gets cold first. You’ll need to leave it on for 24 hours or so before you can really start to tell how cold the refrigerator compartment gets cold. Once you get gaskets installed, I would leave it on five and check it after 24 hours. The gaskets i used came from coolergaskets.com and I used profile 500 which will work with your refrigerator as well. You will need to trim the very back flap with a pair of short kitchen scissors so that it fits under the brass colored bar, which is easy; there is no other replacement that I’m aware of. You’ll need to have them create a custom gasket, and you’ll have to provide measurements. Not terribly difficult.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions but it sounds like you’re well on your way!

 

[combo52]

Yay Melvin congratulations on getting the Highpoint washer and dryer.

All GE compressors from 1956 through 1962 had a design defect and they wear out prematurely. I have never seen an exception to this.

This wall refrigerator may have had a new compressor the original 1957 compressor would likely have failed sometime between 1965 and 1975. GE was still actively changing the compressors in this time.Period.

If you send a couple pictures of the compressor in your refrigerator, I can tell if it’s been changed before the replacement compressors were a little different. It would be great news if it had been changed before.

Going to guess it stopped working and they took the gaskets off so that it didn’t get moldy inside and they used it for storage and just bought a regular refrigerator

The way these compressors would fail they would still run and they’ll cool a little bit. That’s why you got the weak cooling in the freezer. With a healthy sealed system, the freezer should get cold enough in 10 minutes to freeze your fingers to the liner and the evaporator in the top of the refrigerator should be cooling within 15 or 20 minutes as well and also get cold enough that your wet fingers would stick to it.

Don’t worry about laying the refrigerator down. There is no harm in laying in a refrigerator down and then when you get it to your shop, you can set it up and plug it in immediately. It does not hurt it to lay it down. that’s an old wise tail. I’ve never found that to be the case. Where are you could get in trouble is if you take a refrigerator that is plugged in and running unplugged it and immediately turn it on its side before the high and low side system pressure balanced out. If you do this, there is a chance to force oil out of the compressor, and this is where you should let the refrigerator sit upright for 24 hours before operating it but even if you do plug it in it’ll just go out on overload until the oil runs back and it will start running. It still won’t hurt the refrigerator.

The defect in the compressors in this time period Were poor quality metals used in the compressor, and the compressor will run just fine, but it loses compression typically the freezer won’t even freeze anymore at all. GE had a similar problem with their rotary compressors in the 80s every single GE rotary compressor made from 1984 through 1990 wore out prematurely and they would run, but they just didn’t cool because they lost compression, it was the biggest appliance rework in Appliance history when GE had replace all those compressors.

 

[rp2813]

Here's a link to the gasket site.  The door gaskets these GE's use is the "bubble" type.  There are no magnets in them since GE used the alnico type magnets that are adjustable to assure proper sealing.  You can see the metal plates where the door-mounted magnets make contact at the bottom of the cabinet in the picture of the original owner.  You shouldn't need the gasket ring shown on the linked page since the correct type was provided by Christopher further up.

https://www.coolergaskets.com/sample-gasket-ring/

 

[surfit]

Hey Combo, thanks! I'll send a few pics of the compressor when I pick it up on Wednesday. The freezer did get very cold within 10 minutes, so Im hoping it actually does work despite the elderly owner saying it didnt.

Christopher and RP thanks I might have to DM you with questions if thats ok!

 

[rp2813]

Shawn, feel free to shoot me a message.  I'll share any info I can provide.  Also, there's a literature library that you can access here.  Click the last icon on the right at the top of the page.  It might contain something useful like a brochure, owner's guide or service manual.  You can download anything you find interesting.  There's a commensurate fee to do so, depending on how much time it took our webmaster to make high quality reproductions of the material.

 

[repairguy]

Shawn if you get a chance and don’t mind would you see if the manuals or fabric softener dispenser, etc. might still be around for the washer and dryer? No worries if not you already played a huge part in keeping them out of the scrap yard.

 

[surfit]

Hey, I’m going back over Wednesday for the fridge. What color would the fabric softener dispenser be? What would it look like? I’ll look, it could still be in the kitchen.

Did they arrive? What do you think about to them?

Great on the manuals, I’ll definitely browse that stuff as soon as I get this thing off the wall and sorted haha

 

[delco1946]

Feel free to DM me! - Christopher

 

[combo52]

Proper way to test And older GE compressor

You use a pinch off tool that pinches the suction line by squeezing it and then you connect your gauge to the suction port that is built onto a GE compressor and you should be able to get the compressor to pull nearly 30 inch vacuum within just a few minutes if it passes this test. It’s a good compressor.

The pinch off tool will compress the copper suction line and then you can turn it around and reform the line. You don’t even have to cut into the system to run this test.

The GE replacement compressors always had a little cardboard tag hanging on the compressor that list the new part numbers for the overload and relay, etc. sometimes the tags got dated as to when The compressor was actually changed.

Compressor design was also slightly different.

John

 

[repairguy]

Shawn I’m not sure if this washer had a fabric softener dispenser or not but if it did it would be a pan approximately 6 or 8 inches around that mounted on the agitator. It would probably have Hotpoint or fabric softener or both written on it. People usually stored them in cabinets close to the machine if it wasn’t used. I looked for a picture to post but really couldn’t find what I was looking for.

 

[bajaespuma]

It looks like this

There's one still available on eBay if it hasn't been grabbed.  There was a link to it in Shoppers Square's eBay Watch. Also, may not fit the agitator cap of a machine this old. FS dispensers weren't very plentiful in the early sixties and were usually for the TOL's.

 

and please post LOTS of pics of that washer (and the other appliances) when they land.

 

[surfit]

Melvin Im going over tomorrow and I'll look for the dispenser and anything else I can find! Will email you.

 

[repairguy]

Thanks Shawn. I appreciate it very much. Hope there are no issues getting the refrigerator out.

 

[kalanikaau1]

“you have made it”

This recalls growing up in the mid sixties, my Father was looking to replace his car at the time, a '56 Chevy 210 4 door hardtop, it was a hand me down from my Grandmother and was kinda worn for the worse, yet it was dependable as a Maytag from that era.
Among one of the cars he was considering was a Rambler American...I kid you not, no 9 year old in the sixties would be caught dead riding in a Rambler...we already had a "dowdy mobile", that was my Mother's '57 Ford Ranch wagon, along with the Chevy.
As it turns out, he special ordered a '65 Mustang notchback instead, a 289 V8 4 speed stick, understandably I sighed a breath of relief.
The Mustang, probably due to it's Falcon underpinnings, proved to be just as reliable as a Maytag...

 

[surfit]

Well, I went over on Wednesday to get the 57 off the wall. Wow, what a process. There were moments when I thought it wouldn't be possible. Had to rip out the soffit above, cut some non-load bearing 2x4s, but after an hour we got er' down, and I'm happy to announce she is saved.

I cannot believe this monstrosity hung on a simple 4' long track, 3 inches wide. Just 8 very long bolts lol

Melvin, I looked and even spoke to the niece who was there and she said that her uncle moved in in the mid 60s, and the appliances were already there. I looked all around but found nothing. Sorry

Here are pics of the compressor and removal process.

 

[launderess]

Not without issues and detractions but General Electric "Wonder Kitchen" design and appliances were rather forward looking for the time. With bit of reworking concept IMHO would work well today in smaller homes or perhaps apartments, anywhere were a more compact kitchen is desired.

https://retrorenovation.com/2013/04/08/ge-wall-refrigerator-freezer/

https://retrorenovation.com/2013/04/08/ge-wonder-kitchen/



Off top of one's head those wall mounted fridges/freezers would have posed a challenge to a woman of say 5'5" stature. With or without wearing her Cha-Cha heels. *LOL*

Then of course having fridge/freezer that high meant no access for children as well.

In Europe and other parts of world many homes manage perfectly well with small under counter fridges/freezers. Think Hyacinth Bucket's kitchen in "Keeping Up Appearances. Of course having such a small fridge means keeping pretty much to old ways of more frequent shopping.

 

[DADoES]

 
There's a dishwasher in Reply 47 Pic 2.  No mention of it related to the sale, perhaps someone would be interested if it's available.

 

[surfit]

I didnt mention the dishwasher because I think its in rough shape and assumed no one would be interested. But here are some pics. Waste King? hmmm

 

[repairguy]

No worries Shawn. Thanks for looking I appreciate that. Glad you were able to get the fridge out. We like old appliances no matter the condition. Someone may be looking for that particular model. You just never know. Thanks so much for your help and posting about these appliances.

 

[appnut]

That Waste King is the late 1950s dishwasher with its large control knob. We bought our comparable model in 1959/1960 because our model was the same as found in the Ephemera and listed as for a 1961 model use & care manual with the smaller knob. WE moved that dishwasher to our new house in September 1961 from our old house.

 

[combo52]

Removing a GE wall refrigerator

Wow, that was quite an ordeal, it looks like they must’ve put the thing up there and then did some drywall above it. They’re supposed to leave an inch or so above it so it can be lifted off the bracket, even though the thing is heavy that metal bracket, and six or eight lag bolts are plenty to hold that as you can see it’s not going to fall off the wall.

Bad news is that is an original compressor. You’re definitely gonna have to replace it if you expect this thing to cool properly most likely why they gave up on it years ago and just used it for storage.

Good news is you can put in a new more efficient compressor, and the refrigerator will actually use almost half as much Electricity. These wall refrigerators used well over 100 kW of power a month. You should be able to cut that down to less than 100 kW with some good rebuilding a more efficient fan motor also helps a lot.

John

 

[turbokinetic]

Wow that was certainly a lot of work to get that down! It's a shame they didn't follow the GE installation guide and blocked in the top area. 

As John L stated, you have the original compressor all of which were faulty in design and have died.  Fortunately, this original condensing unit has a good tube and fin condenser, and metal fan shroud. This will be a good foundation for building a new condensing unit with a new compressor. 

 

My comment above is because the factory replacement compressor has a very inadequate condenser and is not suitable for use with a new compressor. 

 

Sincerely,

David