So, what counteracts a curse on refrigerators??

[turquoisedude]

I'll try anything... Garlic, Deadly Nightshade, Eye of Newt - whatever it takes...

So, picture this if you will - after a relatively easy winter for Southern Quebec, a fairly good storm hit us on Friday. Hubby had been in Ottawa for a conference and the drive back to Montreal took him nearly 5 hours (it's usually a two-hour drive, tops); it took us another three hours to get to Ogden (that's usually an hour and a half). The driveway hadn't been plowed, so we got to walk through a good nine inches of snow to the house. We threw open the door and POW!
The smell of "decomp" as they say on CSI hit us both upside the head...

I could hear the 62 Cycla-Matic running in the kitchen but I feared that there had been a serious power outage. Nope. Hubby was nearly knocked back on his arse when he opened the door the 52 Westinghouse in the basement. Whatever had been in there was now good and ripe... The poor guy emptied out the rotting meat in the freezer and gave the refrigerator and freezer compartments a wipe out while I made a late supper. He didn't have much of an appetite, needless to say...

 

[turquoisedude]

I don't know much about vintage refrigerators (other than the fact that I have awful luck with them lately!), so I don't know if A: this Westinghouse can be saved or B: is it worth it?

When the stink cleared from the basement on Sunday, I had tinker with the refrigerator to see what might be wrong (not having any clue as to what I was doing, of course). First instict - plug it back in and see what kind of noises it made or didn't make.

Well, I turned the cold control to 'on' and the basement lights dimmed, but the compressor didn't start. I turned it back off pretty quickly. There was power getting to the fridge (the interior light was on), but when I felt the area around the thermostat control, it was HOT (not just warm). I unplugged it fast...

Any ideas of what the heck went wrong here??

 

[turquoisedude]

If worst comes to worst, I'll send this poor old dear to the local metal recycler...

There are potentially useful parts that someone may be interested in, though. For example, I have two of the original door shelves and the egg rack - all in great shape!

 

[turquoisedude]

Also, the door handle is in decent shape; the chrome letters spelling out
W E S T I N G H O U S E are in excellent condition.

I also have the original fruit and vegetable bins and the meat keeper bin in OK condition.

Oh, and please, think good thoughts about the 62 Frigidaire... Hubby will NOT be amused if anything happens to that now!!

 

[cfz2882]

time to check the compressor start relay and check that thermostat control for bad
contacts or bad connection-just jumper around the thermostat and see if 'fridge
starts...The compressor's starting relay is the more likely cause though-for a
quick test run of a few seconds,you can jumper around the relay's contacts and
plug the fridge in to see if the compressor starts. I had an absocold mini fridge
once that actually had a shorted winding in the compressor's motor;would start up
and run a min.or two then the compressor would get hot and trip the thermal protect
and fail to restart.

 

[arbilab]

The compressor is failing to start. Could be relay (more so of GEs) or start capacitor (if equipped). If the motor froze or shorted windings, it's scrap.

 

[norgeway]

Remember!!!

The start relay is IN the thermostat, could be stuck, my aunt had a old WH , it quit and all she had to do is replace the cold control.

 

[firedome]

bummer about the vintage fridge

failure Paul...that there's exactly why I've been a bit afraid of early '60s Frigidaires, or any old fridge for that matter, though I want one in the worst way, losing quantities of food can be expensive these days! Maybe I'll get me one for beer use only.

We were only 50-60 miles from Ogden at our son's in Fairfax VT, they had about 8 inches there. Bare ground back home in NY.

 

[turquoisedude]

Oh, please don't even mention 'Frigidaire'...  If anything happens to that 62 Cycla-Matic I am going to be in serious trouble... LOL

 

We got a BIG snowfall this past weekend - hopefully the rain they are calling for this weekend will melt it all!! 

 

Heading into Newport this weekend to pick up a part for the GE wall fridge - hopefully this will get me on the right track to getting THAT one running again...

 

[mixfinder]

Possessed Electrical

We lived in an old Victorian with an updated electrical service. One summer lightbulbs and small appliances seemed to fail at an accelerated rate usually going out with a turbine sounding whine and then an electrical poof. Most were over twenty years old so I guessed it was the cost of doing business. As we moved into the fall the refrigerator quit, the dryer and then the new furnace. The repairman after hearing our tale suggested an electrical evaluation. The wires feeding the house ran from the street, through some old trees and entered the third floor, attaching to the eave of the house for some 70 years. The wires were worn and loose and when the wind moved the tree branches it created an anomaly known as an open neutral which caused spikes in voltage. Many thousands of dollars later the trees were topped, the power company ran new lines and an electrician redesigned the electrical supply and we replaced and repaired the major appliances.

 

[turquoisedude]

Good heavens!  Kelly, that could very likely have happened here....   We were away for nearly two weeks and there had been power outages (as evidenced by the clocks being out of whack).   The power line for the house travels through a 'corridor' across the property and through the woods (cut by the power company )  but the possibility of branches brushing the lines is a very likely one.  

 

Thinking it over,  my prized turquoise wall clock in the kitchen was not keeping accurate time for about week before the LW11 went Ka-Pow on me and I have a neat Wesclox table clock in the living room that started making the most infernal racket about the same time....     The joys of country living and the price we pay for not being there 7 days a week!!

 

Thanks so much for this insight - I think this may be a contributing factor to my run of bad luck!

 

 

 

[philr]

I hope the french expression "jamais deux sans trois" won't apply here and that your FI-13TC-62 Cycla-Matic will keep running as it has been in the last 50 years!

 

I think this was last refrigerator with a manual defrost freezer available in the Frigidaire Imperial line (at least when the Imperial line was still TOL on refrigerators). As you already know, these have less things that can go bad than Frost-Free (or should I say Frost-Proof!) fridges. But still both of yours were also manual defrost models and something went wrong in them recently!

 

One thing I noticed about these old Frigidaires with rotary compressors is that they don't seem hard to restart after a very short power failure. If you switch them off and on, they restart immediately without anything like an overload protection that delays the restart if the remaining pressure in the system is still high.

 

Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't affected by power shortages or variations...

 

 

[cuffs054]

Here in GA we have squirrels the actully chew through the aluminum connectors on the main neutral line coming into the house. Three time the little beggers have chewed all the way through. Power company says it happens all the time. Having seen the damage a bad neutral can do I remain viligant.

 

[firedome]

It's a good idea

to have the "service entrance" rebuilt or replaced on any dwelling over say 30 years old.
'jamais deux san trois"... kinda like our "bad things come in threes".
We've had 2 trees get knocked down at "camp" the last few mos... hmmmm.