|
Post by Travis on Apr 22, 2017 1:02:37 GMT
Birkie,
The shelves from that large commercial cabinet will not for yours. I can say that with 99% certainty.
Your cabinet is most likely made by Bohn. You're most likely going to have to get shelves made.
|
|
|
Post by birkie on May 3, 2017 1:52:21 GMT
OK, we finally picked it up and drove it from its former home in Rochester NY down to Virginia! We were picking up a bunch of our stuff from storage, so it made a convenient side journey. The fact that the guy who was selling it had a forklift made it even more so. It's actually a 40-fin model; the nameplate is hard to read, but I *think* it's a DR-3-L2. There is no rebuild tag on the unit. It looks like it spent part of its life outside, and has a layer of surface rust over just about everything, particularly the float area. Very little paint remains on the copper coils. The bakelite is cracked below the control box, making the control a little wobbly. I haven't looked inside the controls yet... The pig evaporators have a few small chips in the porcelain. The first inch or two of the tubing that connects to them is steel, and has surface rust. The rest of the copper lines have a light furry green patina The cabinet is HEAVY. I wouldn't be surprised if it weighs somewhere between 400-600 lbs. Travis was right, it's a Bohn. There's a little metal tag on the inside that has the cabinet manufacturer and serial number. The exterior dimensions of the box are 48" wide, 42" high, 25" deep; I believe it would have been considered a 13 sq ft cabinet? The cabinet walls are 3.5" thick. All exterior and interior surfaces are porcelain There are a few chips, and a few larger areas where it looks like a few square inches of porcelain must have hit something and shattered away, leaving a bare rusty surface. My wife wants to see if the chips can be repaired. I recall Allan posting about repairing and color matching porcelain, so will have to read up. When we picked it up, we were very lucky that the seller had a fork lift. He wanted to simply lift the whole thing (top and all) into the truck. I had built a crate for the top in order to make moving easier, and support the evaps. We convinced him that the top simply lifts up, and he agreed to try. We'd brought some chain, but the space between the fins is so tiny that nothing fit. Eventually, we decided to place the forks under the fins of the top and lift it that way; it worked. Getting the unit out of the truck was fun. The truck had a ramp that was slightly narrower than the cabinet. My wife and I didn't have any help, so we figured out we'd build little skids that would slide down the rails on either side of the ramp. With the help of a 2-ton auto jack to get it into position and handle the transitions, that worked rather well. We rigged up a steel cable for safety just in case it got out of control, but as it turns out we didn't need it. The coefficient of friction was just right. Without anybody touching it, the cabinet would creep slowly down the ramp about a millimeter every second. With my wife pushing and me pulling, it slid down easy, in a controlled manner. After moving the cabinet and the top off the truck and into the garage, our CK and CF seemed like featherweight tin cans in comparison! Here are some photos of the unit, and the move: goo.gl/photos/UJtkLBSx6ddZywXbA
|
|
|
Post by sheeplady on May 3, 2017 2:42:23 GMT
Our CK (little sister) next to the DR (big sister), crated on the truck. My back is a little bit sore tonight. No idea why; it's not like I pushed some big fridges down a ramp or anything. Enjoying a nice cold hard cider to celebrate; although it will be so much sweeter when I can crack one open out of a monitor top!
|
|
|
Post by ckfan on May 3, 2017 3:14:18 GMT
That's fantastic! You got very ingenious with the process of actually getting it home. BTW, GE made a lift with forks to get under the coils of the larger units. You were more right than you thought! Glad to see that it is safe and sound.
|
|
|
Post by coldspaces on May 3, 2017 4:12:14 GMT
Welcome to the weighty world of DR's, I have never had the privilege of a fork lift! Glad you got it home with only and excuse to crack a cold one.
|
|
|
Post by elec573 on May 3, 2017 17:07:18 GMT
Congratulations on getting it home that 's half the battle now you can really go to work on it .
|
|
|
Post by allan on May 3, 2017 22:37:41 GMT
OK, we finally picked it up and drove it from its former home in Rochester NY down to Virginia! We were picking up a bunch of our stuff from storage, so it made a convenient side journey. The fact that the guy who was selling it had a forklift made it even more so. It's actually a 40-fin model; the nameplate is hard to read, but I *think* it's a DR-3-L2. There is no rebuild tag on the unit. It looks like it spent part of its life outside, and has a layer of surface rust over just about everything, particularly the float area. Very little paint remains on the copper coils. The bakelite is cracked below the control box, making the control a little wobbly. I haven't looked inside the controls yet... The pig evaporators have a few small chips in the porcelain. The first inch or two of the tubing that connects to them is steel, and has surface rust. The rest of the copper lines have a light furry green patina The cabinet is HEAVY. I wouldn't be surprised if it weighs somewhere between 400-600 lbs. Travis was right, it's a Bohn. There's a little metal tag on the inside that has the cabinet manufacturer and serial number. The exterior dimensions of the box are 48" wide, 42" high, 25" deep; I believe it would have been considered a 13 sq ft cabinet? The cabinet walls are 3.5" thick. All exterior and interior surfaces are porcelain There are a few chips, and a few larger areas where it looks like a few square inches of porcelain must have hit something and shattered away, leaving a bare rusty surface. My wife wants to see if the chips can be repaired. I recall Allan posting about repairing and color matching porcelain, so will have to read up. When we picked it up, we were very lucky that the seller had a fork lift. He wanted to simply lift the whole thing (top and all) into the truck. I had built a crate for the top in order to make moving easier, and support the evaps. We convinced him that the top simply lifts up, and he agreed to try. We'd brought some chain, but the space between the fins is so tiny that nothing fit. Eventually, we decided to place the forks under the fins of the top and lift it that way; it worked. Getting the unit out of the truck was fun. The truck had a ramp that was slightly narrower than the cabinet. My wife and I didn't have any help, so we figured out we'd build little skids that would slide down the rails on either side of the ramp. With the help of a 2-ton auto jack to get it into position and handle the transitions, that worked rather well. We rigged up a steel cable for safety just in case it got out of control, but as it turns out we didn't need it. The coefficient of friction was just right. Without anybody touching it, the cabinet would creep slowly down the ramp about a millimeter every second. With my wife pushing and me pulling, it slid down easy, in a controlled manner. After moving the cabinet and the top off the truck and into the garage, our CK and CF seemed like featherweight tin cans in comparison! Here are some photos of the unit, and the move: goo.gl/photos/UJtkLBSx6ddZywXbANice machine ! Do you have the service adapter kit? Need to check system pressure since that green coating on your copper tubing looks suspicious.
|
|
|
Post by birkie on May 4, 2017 2:50:51 GMT
Thanks, all. Getting it moved had been my biggest worry. Re-reading the teardown threads has been oddly comforting. Now comes the fun part. Nice machine ! Do you have the service adapter kit? Need to check system pressure since that green coating on your copper tubing looks suspicious. Yup - we'll have to see if it still any charge left. The plan at the moment is to tackle the electrical side first - shore up any bare insulation, assess the condition of the controls, check heater and run winding resistances, get it to the point where we can see if the compressor turns over, and if there's any flow of refrigerant. At that point, I plan to crack open the seal unless things happen to be running perfectly.
|
|
|
Post by allan on May 4, 2017 23:16:26 GMT
Thanks, all. Getting it moved had been my biggest worry. Re-reading the teardown threads has been oddly comforting. Now comes the fun part. Nice machine ! Do you have the service adapter kit? Need to check system pressure since that green coating on your copper tubing looks suspicious. Yup - we'll have to see if it still any charge left. The plan at the moment is to tackle the electrical side first - shore up any bare insulation, assess the condition of the controls, check heater and run winding resistances, get it to the point where we can see if the compressor turns over, and if there's any flow of refrigerant. At that point, I plan to crack open the seal unless things happen to be running perfectly. Why?
|
|
|
Post by Travis on May 5, 2017 2:47:26 GMT
Allan,
Are you saying that he should attach a charge adapter and verify it has a charge before proceeding?
In regards to the wiring, you'll likely find that just the ends going to the control are in bad shape. I've used heat shrinkable tubing on the leads. The wires to the heater could be much worse. For testing, disconnect them at the control and simply install a heater in the front.
Allan's concern about the lines is valid. They're nasty on that one. Good luck.
|
|
|
Post by birkie on May 5, 2017 13:40:46 GMT
Well, I guess there's no harm in doing so. Once I find and unpack my gauge set, I'll pop it on and take a look
|
|
|
Post by birkie on May 5, 2017 17:18:00 GMT
... on the other hand, I can't accurately assess how deep the pitting on the steel near the pigs is at the moment (especially the top, less accessible connections). We do not want a ticking time bomb. If it still does have a full SO2 charge, maybe it's wise to just recover it all right away and be done with it. Thoughts?
|
|
|
Post by Travis on May 5, 2017 18:12:49 GMT
You might as well check if is has a charge, then put a good heater in it and test for function.
You're never going to get an agreement about what to do with the so2 here. Allan and Garrett will comment about how nice they sound on so2. Using 134a requires some modification. 152a has never been tested on a DR3 yet.
I would suggest you inspect, clean and stabilize the lines and be sure the unit works. If you dump the so2 and refill it with something else, you're going to confuse yourself over issues and their cause.
|
|
|
Post by ckfan on May 5, 2017 19:58:09 GMT
Travis is right. I would test it first to make sure that it works. If it does work then you can decide if you want to fill it up with a replacement gas or not. Otherwise if it wasn't working to begin with you may wrongly attribute it to the new gas.
|
|
|
Post by birkie on May 6, 2017 3:41:11 GMT
OK, well, I should always go with my first instincts and not doubt. Had an hour to sit down with the machine tonight after putting the kids to bed. The controls looked much better than I expected inside. To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with the wiring. Some of them looked slightly abraded where they went through the bottom hole of the bakelite box, but all the braided cloth was intact. The contacts looked really good, the bellows were intact, and there was much less corrosion than I was expecting. I *love* the simplicity of the control, it's really easy to understand what's going on and there's lots of room. The bakelite broke at the very bottom. Structurally, the bellows tube is holding the controls vertical. It looks like some epoxy would do a nice job. The heater is an open circuit, need to find a replacement. After un-screwing the motor leads, I measured the following resistances: Start-Common: 5.3 Start-Run: 7.9 Run-Common: 3.3 Any to chassis: 3.6M I then removed the little GE nameplate to look at the heater wires under the dome. interestingly, the bolts that hold together the dome look extremely clean. There's no sign of rust anywhere down there, at least when viewed from the little hole. Then I unscrewed the cap to view the access port. Oh my, it looks like a gorilla attempted open it with a hex key. The splines are stripped bare! It looks like there may not be enough metal left to get a grip, but we'll see once I locate my adapters, gauges, and bristol key. Here are a few photos: goo.gl/photos/GiFtcGTRBWv6a8Rb6
|
|