General Electric Refrigerator - I originally posted it on the DR forum but was told to put it here, since it is much later than I thought?
We’ve had it for 25 years with uninterrupted service.
Now it has a “hot electricity/wiring” smell but I'm told it's probably the compressor since the motor is suddenly very hot? It was still cooling, but we’ve unplugged it in case of fire hazard. We are so, so hoping someone can resurrect or rebuild/retrofit our baby. Or, tell us how we might tackle it.
Hi there and welcome to the forum!
The FEA machine has an interesting story. I don't think anyone has found out definitely how GE came up with the model names for all the fridges. They appear to have named the earlier open-coil models "DR" for 'domestic refrigerator' but the CK, CA, FEA, CF etc. models seem to remain a mystery.
The FEA is a cool piece of history. During the world-war 2 era; materials were in very short supply because manufacturers were diverting things for war effort production. General electric and other makers were rebuilding failed cooling units and putting them back into service; to save materials versus making a whole new machine. Your cabinet would have started life with a DR cooling unit on top. Apparently, some time during the later war years, or just post-war; that original machine failed.
During this time, GE was working on designing a new compressor for their next new models, after life started to return to normal.
The FEA cooling unit was built to be a drop-on replacement for older failed Monitor Tops. It allowed people to keep their original cabinet and save cost versus a completely new fridge. At the same time, GE was designing completely new cabinets around this compressor as well.The FEA was General Electric's first "completely new design" refrigerating machine after the end of WWII. The horizontal compressor was designed with the size and shape allowing it to fit underneath the upcoming new models of cabinets GE was planning. The end of WWII signaled a new beginning for society, without the fear and uncertainty of the war; and this was also the beginning of the new generation of GE refrigeration. The company showed enough concern about their customers to build a special product (just a cooling unit with no cabinet of its own) to allow existing owners to benefit from the new engineering by retrofitting it to the older cabinets. I don't think any manufacturer has done similar that I know of.
GE had a large reputation to live up to, with the CK Monitor Top and CF Flat Top being so incredibly reliable. A lot of engineering went into the FEA to ensure it lived up to this reputation. The compressor used a similar low-speed motor and oil circulation pump system as the last Monitor Top used. These designs made for a long life and quiet operation.
One of the very few down-sides to the FEA is its dependency on a fan for cooling. Previously, no designs had any external moving parts. All of the Monitor Top refrigerators prior to the FEA, used convection to cool the machine. In other words, "heat rises" and the rising of hot air created an air current which passed through the cooling fins and cooled the machine. This necessitated a tall machine, so that the vertical airflow could be obtained.
The FEA cooling system needed to be smaller and flatter; therefore the rising of hot air couldn't be used to cool the machine. Therefore a fan was included in the design. The horizontal design of the FEA would not allow "rising hot air" to cool the machine because the cooling air has to flow sideways through the FEA; necessitating a fan.
The fan motor is another one of GE's very long-lived designs. The fan motor has a large oil reservoir and can often run many decades with no added oil. But eventually, the oil dries up and the motor gets harder and harder to turn. This is the one "Achilles heel" of the FEA. The fan must work, or the unit is going to overheat.
Yours is a very early model FEA, with the compressor mounted in line with the fan as opposed to cross-ways. The early ones often have an oil port for the fan motor; however I don't see that on yours. I think I see the rubber grommet where the oil tube might have been at one time, but there is not one in the grommet now. That means probably someone already replaced the fan motor once already and the replacement has dried up and gummed up.
The fan blade should turn with almost no resistance. If there is any drag, it will not be able to start and run. If you push the fan, it should continue to spin after a gentle push, If the fan stops immediately, it's too stiff to run on its own.
On a positive note; the fan motor design GE came up with has stood the test of time and you can still get them made new, almost the same way. The fan is somewhat hard to access on this model due to the compressor blocking access, but they designed it so that the condenser coil can be moved out of the way to access the fan from the front. This is not a super-easy repair and involves careful flexing of some of the lines, so a person who is familiar with working on delicate machinery should be the one doing this.
You did the right thing to unplug it, since running without the fan is going to harm the compressor.
Can you answer these few questions to get more useful help here?
Does the compressor still operate? In other words when you found it overheated, was it still running and cooling?
Does the fan still spin freely by hand?
There are a few of us who do repair fridges for others. You would need to replace the wiring and (probably) the fan motor to make this ready to go back in service.
Texas has a few helpful folks I know. If you were closer to Alabama I could have that fan replaced in no-time but it would be a long ride to get here.
Sincerely,
David
