After an excellent burger at EVLTWN and Willa's house
and a fine meeting with Scott Mac, Turbo and Mary Ann, I returned with the tapping goodies
but had to wait until the weekend before there was time to do much. One day before work I
took a trip to AirGas and exchanged one of my old CO2
tanks for a full one. I ran the fridge for a few days and noticed the evaporator coils
looked to be icing up. Following advice, I took a peek around and found the defrost timer
under the kick panel. I also found an envelope with a
wiring diagram and parts layout.
I took the timer to work and rigged up an LED and 9V battery to check to see if it was cycling.
There was a small window on the motor and I could see it running, but I wondered if the switch
contacts were burnt or any gears broken. It looked to be working, but one day my office partner
said he heard it click and didn't see it light before or after. Hmmm.
That weekend I changed spark plugs on the Whatzit and took a short ride to clear my head.
When I got back I dug into the freezer compartment to see what was up.
About 10 screws later I had the floor out, and found that the diagram I
had found didn't match what was there from what I could see. The "food compartment top heater" and "drain heater" were not visible, and they were supposed to be over the defrost heater element. The defrost heater had more to it than pictured. Hmmm. The thermostat and the heater both had electrician's tape on their respective wires. I wondered if someone else had been working on this thing before.
Anyway, the heater was supposed to read about 20 ohms and it read open. The thermostat read
open too, but that was probably because it was too warm inside the garage.
I found A1 Appliance Parts on the net with great prices, the parts I needed and repair tutorials. I decided that I would replace the entire defrost circuit and be done with it. At $70 I might have been better off looking for a used refrigerator, but I decided to give repairing the fridge a shot rather than giving up on it since it was cooling so well. Hey, I love to tinker and this was my first foray into a fridge and I was enjoying the challenge!