And now for the ‘But’
When testing the refrigerator, Phil and I noted a few problems... One of the door light switches was messed up. Phil adapted a spring found in one of my parts drawers to replace the one which had rusted away in the original one. I will attempt to find a replacement this week...
The big but was that the refrigerator never seemed to cycle off.... I swear that last Sunday night when we got back from hubby’s birthday dinner out, the refrigerator was off, but it started again when I opened the door to check the temperature. I kept it plugged in on Monday, but did not observe any cycling. I unplugged it and tried again Tuesday – still no cycling... I also noticed there was no ‘off’ position on the cold control – the compressor continued to run at the ‘0’ mark...After a good chat with John (combo52) he suggested that I re-route the capillary line from the cold control so that it was touching the cooling coils (they were draped loosely across the coils at the top of this type of refrigerator). Armed with this information and my copy of a Time-Life book on how to repair major appliances, I tried to test the cold control using a circuit tester. I found that the way it was wired, there seemed to always be power getting to the compressor, but I found there was terminal on the control where the ‘0’ actually broke the circuit, so I figured “what the heck” and changed it around. The fridge ran and would shut off when manually turned off – progress! It was not until today that I rerouted the capillary line but the results seemed good! I noticed at least three on/off cycles so there may be hope yet!
Now, this may sound hard to believe but there may still be hope for the 1956 model! A local appliance repair person who is currently liquidating his parts inventory (that will be the subject of another thread – stay tuned!) was at the house on Saturday and had a look at the 1956 unit. He is convinced that the failure I had experienced was entirely due to the bad resistor; he is 95% sure that if I could get a two-phase condenser fan back on the machine it will run. Here’s even better news – he knows where the one I took out of the 56 can be re-wired! That will be done this week, so there’s hope...
Last note about this relates to the two-phase condenser fan motor... Upon arrival at the Hansen’s store to pick up the Kenmore dryer, I was called into the shop area by Hans II. He showed me the compressor unit of a GE ‘Monitor Top’ refrigerator and asked “What do you think about that?” Well, I thought my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets – the old Monitor Tops used a two-phase condenser fan also! Mr. Hansen was attempting to substitute a two wire, 1-phase, 120volt motor (like I did) and found that the refrigerator would not run when the motor was in place (also like I did). He said he was working on finding how to simulate the second phase (approximately 70 volts) and would let me know what he found. Who knew??
So, if the original GE comes back to life, and the 58 cycles reliably again, what the smeg do I do with the one waiting for me in Minnesota.... This will be a fun one to solve....
