Interesting but non-working Frigidaire fridge

[twintubdexter]

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">This was a new refrigerator on the sales floor right around the time I ended my appliance store "career" and like Jethro Bodine done grad-ee-ated the fifth grade at San Jose State. Similar to the Westinghouse "Twin Fountain" refrigerator from years earlier, this diluted and mixed concentrated frozen beverages and dispensed them. The poppy is very nice, but $750 for a fridge that runs but doesn't get cold doesn't seem like much of  a bargain. Unlike most sellers believe, no refrigerant can be difficult and, if parts like an evaporator are needed, sometimes nearly impossible to repair. On ebay in Missouri.</span>

[this post was last edited: 1/10/2019-23:01]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vtg-1970s-...846886?hash=item1ef2579ca6:g:u9sAAOSw99tcLrAC

 

[goatfarmer]

I have that same 'fridge, in almond. And it works!

 

That one is closer to 81, than 71.

 

 

 

[twintubdexter]

Working, it would be a cool fridge to own

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Since my memory is pretty much shot, I'm not sure the year the seller mentions is accurate. Goatfarmer is probably correct. All I can remember was a time when almost all new Frigidaire refrigerators had handles like that. I do know that by 1981 I was appliance store history and had escaped the "backwoods country living" of  San Jose for the sophistication and elegance of San Francisco's Castro and Folsom districts.</span>

 

[combo52]

The Shaded Poppy color puts it as a 1976 or earlier, Almond came out in 1977, this ref was gone after 1980.

 

John L.

 

[fan-of-fans]

My aunt had a 1975 Frigidaire in her house with those handles (but no dispensers). She also has one in her beach house, but it's from 1985 and the WCI era, but still has those same curved woodgrain handles.

 

[goatfarmer]

They used a different Frigidaire emblem in 1971. It was long and narrow, VS the square one pictured,

 

[estesguy]

Runs but doesn't cool

Frigidaire refrigerators from GM always had the bulletproof metermiser compressor, so when they quit cooling, its likely a refrigerant leak, and often in the evaporator. Not worth the effort IMHO

 

[twintubdexter]

This is 99% guessing..,

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">I think around 1965 Frigidaire dropped the Meter Miser jargon (at least on TOL models) in favor of the Power Capsule name. The store had this very cool display of a Power Capsule Compressor decked out with a gold bottom that lit up and rotated within a clear plastic sphere, similar to the ad. A number of these same "Bewitched" electric door refrigerators made it into the shop for one thing or another. Although I did not work on refrigeration or customer repairs, I don't ever recall seeing an actual compressor that looked like that. They were just black.</span>

 

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">Probably just a Meter Miser in "fancy dress"</span>

 

[rp2813]

Wow, she looks a lot like the Pan Am stewardess in Space Odyssey -- two years before that movie was released.

 

[goatfarmer]

We had that exact refrigerator in our kitchen for years.

 

[estesguy]

Meter miser

When I said Meter Miser, I basically meant they used the rotary designed compressors that were extremely durable and reliable. I wasn't aware and didn't keep up with the names Frigidaire used over the years. My friend and I actually took lower HP models and used them for a poor mans vacuum pump years ago. Ha

 

[combo52]

Rotary Compressors Made Good Vacuum Pumps

Because you didn't' draw all the crap into the shell and the compressors oil like you would if you used a piston type compressor with the shell on the low side.

 

This is why WP-Seeger and FD compressors were so often actually sold as vacuum pumps for refrigerator repair.

 

The FD compressors were durable, but I will take a WP-Seeger compressor  over a FD because they were inherently balanced and ran much more quietly than a FD compressor, I always hated the rattling sound of FD compressors.

 

John L.

 

[twintubdexter]

estesguy,

<span style="font-size: 14pt; color: #008000;">You sure sound like an expert to me. I understood exactly what you meant. The main refrigeration guy where I worked (Tommy, my dad's childhood friend) made a vacuum pump out of a traditional Meter Miser and used it on almost every major repair.  I just mentioned that Power Capsule thing because I remembered that cool display the store had on the sales floor. I wish I had it today. It'd make a great centerpiece for the Thanksgiving or Christmas Day table.</span>

 

[rp2813]

I'm with John 100% re:  Noisy Frigidaire compressors.  That's the primary reason I'm not interested in any of their vintage refrigerators

 

[estesguy]

No expert here, I'll leave that to John L. My refrigeration repair days ended in my 20s when I went to work aircraft the last 40 years. My contact man for refrigerant at the wholesale business retired, and I had no EPA license to buy more, so I even quit doing it on the side at that point. I will say my friend went so far as to disassemble a Frigidaire compressor completely, and I remember you could take the rotary plate and put it up against the side plate and you could not pull them apart without sliding them apart. I suppose oil helped them stick a little bit, but I was always impressed with that kind of close tolerance machining, which is why they made such good vacuum pumps, I suppose.