Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 8, 2019 20:03:31 GMT
It's a real positive, uncommon situation that the shaft seal is good in your unit. That's been the Achilles Heel in all the ones I've located. It's very fortunate that the R12 was heavy enough to lift the low-side float and make it work properly. One of our members has a Frigidaire with low-side float which was charged with R12, unmodified, and it does not work properly due to density problems.Please, when you have time, make a video for us. That would be awesome!  Sincerely, David That would be me. Eventually, I'll get around to getting my Frigidaire working properly. Super cool seeing your SW. Just out of curiosity, where are you in North TX? I'm up around Glen Rose. What does your Frigidaire do or not do? I just sanded the old paint down until it was halfway smooth and then sprayed it down with a few heavy coats of rustoleum appliance epoxy. It's not perfect by any means but it is certainly presentable now. I may sand on it a little more when the weather warms back up and put another coat on...maybe... It makes enough of a racket I'm not sure it will ever be an inside fridge. |
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Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 8, 2019 20:06:34 GMT
Zach, The ad you found might be my model. Without showing the door closed, it's tough to know. The fridge in the ad appeared to have some sort of a push button door latch. Whether all of their '34 lineup was so equipped is anyone's guess. Hopefully the parts manual I ordered will come in at some point and provide some answers. |
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Post by turbokinetic on Feb 8, 2019 21:46:44 GMT
That would be me. Eventually, I'll get around to getting my Frigidaire working properly. Super cool seeing your SW. Just out of curiosity, where are you in North TX? I'm up around Glen Rose. What does your Frigidaire do or not do? I just sanded the old paint down until it was halfway smooth and then sprayed it down with a few heavy coats of rustoleum appliance epoxy. It's not perfect by any means but it is certainly presentable now. I may sand on it a little more when the weather warms back up and put another coat on...maybe... It makes enough of a racket I'm not sure it will ever be an inside fridge. The belt drive fridges are so unique in their sounds!
Paul and I have been troubleshooting on his and made a few observations. It is allowing the evaporator to overfill with liquid refrigerant, and then it floods liquid back to the compressor. This causes it to sweat but not frost, and overload the motor. It starts out frosting, then gradually loses its cool as the return line starts to get cold.
It's either the float needle / seat is severely worn; or (more likely) the float is too heavy to float on the less dense R12. I ran into the density issue with my Frigidaire, and also Travis's. Addition of a spring to the float arm corrected the problem.
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Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 8, 2019 23:52:36 GMT
I'm up around Glen Rose. What does your Frigidaire do or not do? I just sanded the old paint down until it was halfway smooth and then sprayed it down with a few heavy coats of rustoleum appliance epoxy. It's not perfect by any means but it is certainly presentable now. I may sand on it a little more when the weather warms back up and put another coat on...maybe... It makes enough of a racket I'm not sure it will ever be an inside fridge. The belt drive fridges are so unique in their sounds!
Paul and I have been troubleshooting on his and made a few observations. It is allowing the evaporator to overfill with liquid refrigerant, and then it floods liquid back to the compressor. This causes it to sweat but not frost, and overload the motor. It starts out frosting, then gradually loses its cool as the return line starts to get cold.
It's either the float needle / seat is severely worn; or (more likely) the float is too heavy to float on the less dense R12. I ran into the density issue with my Frigidaire, and also Travis's. Addition of a spring to the float arm corrected the problem.
Interesting, mine appears to be working correctly as far as I can tell, the return line only frosts during extended run cycles such as an initial cool down or when making ice. The rest of the time it just gets cool enough to sweat, and never gets frosty within a foot of the compressor. It pulls around 270 watts at first then gradually works it's way down to ~240 by the time it cycles off. That seems a little high to me, but the motor only just gets warm and doesn't trip either the original overload or the modern one I added. |
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Post by birkie on Feb 9, 2019 0:25:31 GMT
It's either the float needle / seat is severely worn; or (more likely) the float is too heavy to float on the less dense R12. I ran into the density issue with my Frigidaire, and also Travis's. Addition of a spring to the float arm corrected the problem. | Refrigerant | Density @10f
(kg/m3) | Difference from SO2
% | | R152A | 988 | -33% | | R134a | 1337 | -10% | | R12 | 1437 | -2.2% | | SO2 | 1470 | 0 | | R124 | 1477 | +0.5% |
So R12 is about 2% less dense. I've never adjusted low-side floats, so I'm not sure how finicky they are. If Density the issue, it's a small-ish tweak. |
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Post by ckfan on Feb 9, 2019 2:36:08 GMT
That spells it out nicely. I like that table. Thank you Birkie!
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Post by csulaguy on Feb 10, 2019 3:00:52 GMT
That would be me. Eventually, I'll get around to getting my Frigidaire working properly. Super cool seeing your SW. Just out of curiosity, where are you in North TX? I'm up around Glen Rose. What does your Frigidaire do or not do? I just sanded the old paint down until it was halfway smooth and then sprayed it down with a few heavy coats of rustoleum appliance epoxy. It's not perfect by any means but it is certainly presentable now. I may sand on it a little more when the weather warms back up and put another coat on...maybe... It makes enough of a racket I'm not sure it will ever be an inside fridge. I know exactly where you are. I just passed through there Tuesday night before heading on 281 south at Hico. Nice area up there, though I've learned my lesson - don't go more than 5 over, because the DPS officer that works between Glen Rose and Cleburne is a real stickler. My Frigidaire gets frosty, and then the evap just sweats. The person who sold it to me just put in R12, but I'm thinking it's a density problem (well, that's what David thinks, anyways). Yup, I painted my DR-1 recently with that appliance epoxy. It's not bad of stuff, but nothing like the 2 stage GM Arctic White that my buddy sprayed on the cabinet. I saw it on his Camaro and fell in love. He had me choose it blindly from paint chips and sure enough, I picked out the same one. |
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Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 10, 2019 4:48:30 GMT
I'm up around Glen Rose. What does your Frigidaire do or not do? I just sanded the old paint down until it was halfway smooth and then sprayed it down with a few heavy coats of rustoleum appliance epoxy. It's not perfect by any means but it is certainly presentable now. I may sand on it a little more when the weather warms back up and put another coat on...maybe... It makes enough of a racket I'm not sure it will ever be an inside fridge. I know exactly where you are. I just passed through there Tuesday night before heading on 281 south at Hico. Nice area up there, though I've learned my lesson - don't go more than 5 over, because the DPS officer that works between Glen Rose and Cleburne is a real stickler. My Frigidaire gets frosty, and then the evap just sweats. The person who sold it to me just put in R12, but I'm thinking it's a density problem (well, that's what David thinks, anyways). Yup, I painted my DR-1 recently with that appliance epoxy. It's not bad of stuff, but nothing like the 2 stage GM Arctic White that my buddy sprayed on the cabinet. I saw it on his Camaro and fell in love. He had me choose it blindly from paint chips and sure enough, I picked out the same one. They work that stretch of 67 pretty hard, I believe it's 65 all the way too. I've found that avoiding Cleburne in general saves me a lot of trouble and improves my quality of life. |
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Post by coldspaces on Feb 26, 2019 2:28:47 GMT
I have had no issues with 134a opening the floats but My first DR wouldn't open with R12 . Must be more in play here than just the density difference?
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Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 26, 2019 3:54:20 GMT
So far this little fridge has been chugging along nicely with no issues to report. I hope it continues to do so.
The parts manual came in the mail a little while back and it matches up with the 1935 "Premier" model so I suppose that's as positive of an identification as I'll ever get.
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Post by turbokinetic on Feb 26, 2019 9:16:18 GMT
I have had no issues with 134a opening the floats but My first DR wouldn't open with R12 . Must be more in play here than just the density difference?
Hi Gill! I'm of the opinion that oil miscibility plays a very big part in the proper operation of these early systems. It would be hard to know "for sure" without some see-through components, but based on what people have noticed and discussed here, it seems to be the case. It seems that several high-side dome systems have been charged with different but miscible refrigerant combinations; with somewhat mixed results. It seems that most of them become excessively sensitive to ambient temperature; and the charge amount is very hard to dial in.
As for Paul's Frigidaire with R12 we were talking about; we've been operating under the assumption that the float valve its self is indeed functional. After further discussion, I'm beginning to question the inspection and check-out of the system during the conversion process. It may be that certain inspection points could have been overlooked. In other words, it may be that the valve its self is eroded; so that even though the float is lifting, the refrigerant isn't being restricted. Early in the discussions about it; there was no question that every part had been completely inspected and found to be good; but as our discussion continued, that became less clear. Either way, the evaporator will have to come apart and be checked out well.
When I repaired Travis's Frigidaire, the original needle was horribly eroded to a degree there would be no way it could close off when the evaporator was full of liquid. I didn't attempt to run it with the damaged needle. I turned a new taper on the needle first. With R152A (much lighter than R12 or SO2), there is a large enough density difference that a spring is required. With R12 maybe not; however now you have the oil miscibility at play where it is less of a factor with R152A. The backflooding issue that Paul has might be due to a bad float needle / seat. We won't know until the evaporator gets opened up and inspected. It will be interesting to see the condition when we get it opened!
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Post by turbokinetic on Feb 26, 2019 10:15:27 GMT
So far this little fridge has been chugging along nicely with no issues to report. I hope it continues to do so. The parts manual came in the mail a little while back and it matches up with the 1935 "Premier" model so I suppose that's as positive of an identification as I'll ever get.
That's great you got the manual for it! Have you been able to confirm, based on the manual, that it's still got its original working parts?
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Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 26, 2019 16:04:33 GMT
So far this little fridge has been chugging along nicely with no issues to report. I hope it continues to do so. The parts manual came in the mail a little while back and it matches up with the 1935 "Premier" model so I suppose that's as positive of an identification as I'll ever get.
That's great you got the manual for it! Have you been able to confirm, based on the manual, that it's still got its original working parts?
The only thing that differs from the manual is the control. The illustrations in the book only show the twist knob, while mine has the knob, and a push/pull switch for defrosting the machine. Whether it's a slightly later model, or just a replacement I doubt I will ever know. All the part numbers and illustrations match on everything else however. Of course I'm missing the ice trays and refrigerator dishes. |
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Post by turbokinetic on Feb 26, 2019 17:19:48 GMT
That's great you got the manual for it! Have you been able to confirm, based on the manual, that it's still got its original working parts?
The only thing that differs from the manual is the control. The illustrations in the book only show the twist knob, while mine has the knob, and a push/pull switch for defrosting the machine. Whether it's a slightly later model, or just a replacement I doubt I will ever know. All the part numbers and illustrations match on everything else however. Of course I'm missing the ice trays and refrigerator dishes. That's good yours is mostly original! Interesting about the control differences too. |
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Zach
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Post by Zach on Feb 26, 2019 23:09:43 GMT
I added a picture of the applicable page from the manual to my google drive. The link is still the same but I'll repost it anyway. drive.google.com/open?id=1xddDLizm2ooaYIoNz3t1lvjeVxwcSQIr You can see how mine has a different control, and how the plate it is attached to overlaps the "S" script slightly. That makes me think it may be a replacement. |
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