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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 2, 2018 6:26:27 GMT
Hey folks, a link to this was sent by another member, since it was near my location. I was able to meet with a friend from the area and we were just barely able to move it out of the seller's basement area and up some outdoor stairs to the trailer. It is hella heavy!
Me and my merry Oldsmobile just returning from Atlanta with the new acquisition on the trailer!
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The fridge was in a basement, and there was a hot water leak in the area. The steam was not kind to the control.
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The green corrosion worries me. Not because I can't clean and refurbish the control; but because it may be caused by a sulfur dioxide leak.
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The nameplate.
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She is on her second life already. Hope that second life isn't all used up.
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Legs installed and on the dolly I built for it. The cabinet was sitting on the concrete floor without legs. There was all sorts of crud in the holes, so I ran a 5/16-18 tap in there to repair the threads. The new bolts went in nicely after that.
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The interior is a little rough. There are chips in the porcelain and that may be oil on the bottom of the cabinet. It is hard to tell but I might have smelled SO2 in the area. But that could be some other chemicals I have in the shop as well; or from the waste oil taken out of the Frigidaire belt-drive pump.
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The heater is toast. Will be replacing that before a run test is made. We did start the compressor for about 10 seconds during the negotiating of the purchase. The seller plugged it in overnight but there was no heat by the next day.
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And a short video always helps!
Thoughts? Ideas? Sympathy? LOL!
Thanks! David
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Post by birkie on Jul 2, 2018 12:39:32 GMT
Nice find! This is pretty much the final evolution of the DR design, and therefore the lightest of the DR-2 series. Rumor has it they evolved a fan inside the dome to help with cooling of the windings by this point; it's good to know that yours seem OK. This model had a welded dome, so it is more difficult to get in to. It's contemporary to your 1931 Frigidaire, so maybe they can be buddies.
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 2, 2018 13:14:03 GMT
Nice find! This is pretty much the final evolution of the DR design, and therefore the lightest of the DR-2 series. Rumor has it they evolved a fan inside the dome to help with cooling of the windings by this point; it's good to know that yours seem OK. This model had a welded dome, so it is more difficult to get in to. It's contemporary to your 1931 Frigidaire, so maybe they can be buddies.
Thanks; It was a nice find, and again someone else had noticed it and sent me an e-mail about it so I can't claim full credit for locating it LOL!
Hopefully the winding is indeed good, as we just ran it for a moment. I know it did start readily and the start relay kicked out without any struggling. Just didn't want to run it cold without the heater.
This DR and the 31 Frigidaire will be in my house for show and tell. They represent the final evolution of the DR design (as you said) and the final evolution of the belt-drive design Frigidaire used.
Hopefully it won't need internal repairs. I gather, after reading others' stories, these machines seem to have a high failure rate after relocation. Probably due to the windings having wear points against the stator since they are not varnished and can move against the stator. So hopefully it didn't take too much of a beating on the ride. I was able to stay on the Interstate most of the way, but there are some rough areas in need of repavement. I know that there were a few bumps taken during the movement up stairs with the appliance dolly, but the condenser never touched the ground or anything else. Once I got home with it, I could see that there are dents and gouges in the top coil of the condenser, that look like it was set upside down on concrete, recently. There are also hammer marks on the top of the float chamber, as if someone has been trying to free up the float in the past.
If these old machines could talk, they could surely tell some wild stories!
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Post by solarmike on Jul 2, 2018 21:01:22 GMT
Man that is awesome... Glad you got it and in Atlanta to boot... They are out there..... Cheap too.........
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 2, 2018 21:47:07 GMT
Man that is awesome... Glad you got it and in Atlanta to boot... They are out there..... Cheap too......... Yep they are out there, waiting....
I am in the process of ordering a heater for the compressor sump but in the meantime I inserted a soldering iron into the heater well and it's heating at this time.
Currently planning a test run this evening, however I am not feeling hopeful. I noticed that not only has the float chamber been given a lot of donkey tracks with a hammer; the service port has been beat as well. I don't think the service tool will fit on there as-is and not sure what sort of repair will be possible.
The most worrisome are the lack of percolation sounds from the heater being on (soldering iron) in spite of the obvious warmth in the base of the dome at this time. And I am starting to become more reasonably sure that I smell SO2 around the unit. Yesterday I wasn't too concerned because the area where I unloaded it from the trailer was near some waste oil containers which had the old oil from the Frigidaire belt-drive compressor. But the DR is now in a storage room with no other source of any off smells other than its self.
But, if it's leaked - leaks can be repaired and I have plenty of R152A here. So time will tell! |
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 3, 2018 2:27:31 GMT
Here are some more pictures of the DR from today. First, the bad. This hackery is what remains of the service port. The secondary plug is missing, leading to rust invading the port. Also, the end of the fitting has been beat into an egg shape. Totally incompetent morons did this. .JPG)
Now for the good news! Yes that's a heavy coating of frost on the evaporator! It's hard to see with the white porcelain evaporator, but you can see where I am scraping it off with my fingernail.
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Notice how thick the frost is. That was after about 4 hours of running today. The gaskets are nonexistent. No gasket between the top and the cabinet, and none on the door. New gaskets will surely make all the difference in the world to it.
Since it's a painted cabinet, that will need to be refinished. It's been painted with some sort of beige house paint(!) that is peeling off in sheets.
I made a video of it here! Sorry I have gone back to non-HD videos. My new video editing workstation was damaged by lightning surge and a new motherboard is on order. The laptop doesn't have the horsepower to do HD.
Sincerely, David |
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Post by ckfan on Jul 3, 2018 13:10:56 GMT
Yay! It lives! I’m so happy for you. I just knew it would. As far as the smell goes it may be a slight leak...or it may be nothing at all. Travis and I have noticed that in some of these cabinets that you will catch a whiff of SO2 even when the system is fine. The only thing we can come up with is that the foam seals they used may have been blown with SO2. That is just a guess of course but we have experienced that multiple times. The only way to really check would be to pull the unit out and check the connections at the evaporator because those are always suspect. Obviously yours is still working fine though. That is very encouraging. It really makes me want to get my D2 running. I haven’t even posted about it yet because it is going to need quite a bit of work.
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 3, 2018 13:22:02 GMT
Yay! It lives! I’m so happy for you. I just knew it would. As far as the smell goes it may be a slight leak...or it may be nothing at all. Travis and I have noticed that in some of these cabinets that you will catch a whiff of SO2 even when the system is fine. The only thing we can come up with is that the foam seals they used may have been blown with SO2. That is just a guess of course but we have experienced that multiple times. The only way to really check would be to pull the unit out and check the connections at the evaporator because those are always suspect. Obviously yours is still working fine though. That is very encouraging. It really makes me want to get my D2 running. I haven’t even posted about it yet because it is going to need quite a bit of work.
Thanks, I appreciate it! I really feel guilty that I doubted its functionality before testing it. Shoulda known better!
That's reassuring that the whiff of SO2 may be common and not a cause for concern. I do plan to take the unit off the cabinet and take the cabinet liner out. There is something going on with the cabinet liner, where it has some chips and holes. I don't know if the entire thing is rusted out from the outside in, or if those were damage from rough handling on the inside. Either way there are openings from inside the cabinet to the insulation space between the liner and the outer wall of the cabinet.
So, I got to ask; when you say your D2 will need a lot of work; how rough is it?
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Post by birkie on Jul 3, 2018 13:39:18 GMT
Those old DRs can be full of surprises, and can have "personalities" that make each one react slightly differently to different operating conditions. It's funny how awful they can get in terms of exterior damage and corrosion, yet fire up and cool just fine. I think GE really did subject them to fire and flooding when they tested them!
The cabinet insulation is *probably* some sort of fiberboard; some models even used celotex. I don't think they had the cardboard insulation back in '31/32, but I'm not 100% sure of that. It might be good to check to make sure it isn't saturated and rusting from the cavity out to the interior.
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 3, 2018 14:01:01 GMT
Those old DRs can be full of surprises, and can have "personalities" that make each one react slightly differently to different operating conditions. It's funny how awful they can get in terms of exterior damage and corrosion, yet fire up and cool just fine. I think GE really did subject them to fire and flooding when they tested them! Probably so! I know that a flood would be no more than a minor inconvenience for one! The insulation would be my worst concern getting wet and deteriorating. The control would need to have all the silt and dirt cleaned out of it, but the rest of the system is fully sealed. One of my Frigidaires was flooded, paid for by insurance, "destroyed" by cutting off the cord; and then all it needed was washing and rewiring.
Yes, this is exactly what I'm afraid of. The seller told me they had a water heater fail in the room where this was sitting. I imagine a steam sauna that lasted for months in an already damp basement.
No doubt about the surprises. It's had 90 years to save up surprises LOL!
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Post by ckfan on Jul 3, 2018 14:28:18 GMT
My D2 isn’t terrible. It just needs a lot of love. New paint all around, cleaning up the shelves, new gaskets, working on the control, new heater. You know, the usual stuff. I have no idea if it runs and cools or not
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 3, 2018 14:31:37 GMT
My D2 isn’t terrible. It just needs a lot of love. New paint all around, cleaning up the shelves, new gaskets, working on the control, new heater. You know, the usual stuff. I have no idea if it runs and cools or not Understand! It's just in need of the typical 90 year old equipment repairs they all need by now LOL! 
Speaking of shelves, I wonder how successful various methods of shelf restoration have proven to be?
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Post by ckfan on Jul 3, 2018 14:38:19 GMT
For me the shelves don’t have to be perfect. The shelves I have aren’t rusted to pieces so I will just give them a good cleaning and buff them up. They should look reasonable after that. Other people have had good luck with platings. If you look around you should find some threads that mention it.
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Post by turbokinetic on Jul 3, 2018 14:44:51 GMT
For me the shelves don’t have to be perfect. The shelves I have aren’t rusted to pieces so I will just give them a good cleaning and buff them up. They should look reasonable after that. Other people have had good luck with platings. If you look around you should find some threads that mention it. Understand. These aren't that bad, just that some other projects I have ongoing really need shelf attention. Crumbs of rust sift down onto the lower shelves when you move things around on an upper shelf..... |
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Post by icebox on Jul 3, 2018 16:50:53 GMT
So glad it works David, from your original description I was sure it would have no gas left in. Great news, thanks for sharing!
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