Newbie with some questions about my CK

Welcome to the forum! My flat top uses so2 but what cablehack said is accurate. Mine still has a perfect frost line which indicates no loss of refrigerant. They are robust designs that in most cases don’t leak out their refrigerant, I have not heard of them ever letting lose all at once unless someone jabbed a knife etc to the frost buildup and punctured it. If the top and evaporator are not dinged up or corroded I don’t see it becoming problem.

There’s a few threads on this form that deal with the testing of other safe and readily available refrigerants. Refrigerants that are safer than many new fridges which use R600(propane) that have explosive and flammable stickers all over it when you unbox it.

As for professional restorers in NE, I’m not certain, hopefully someone can chime in!

Hi Paul. Glad you're on our forum and have acquired your CK Monitor Top. I can answer some of your questions.

These are indeed SO2 systems. There is a lot of negative information from back in the day concerning this refrigerant. Earlier systems contained many "tens of pounds" of SO2 in the unit and other parts. With some of the larger systems, belt-driven compressors in particular; it was possible for a leak to pose a significant health risk. This was of particular concern to people who could not move away from the leak if it were in a confined space.

The CK Monitor Top is one of the last SO2 refrigerators sold. By this time, the technology was mature and the CK doesn't have a very large charge of refrigerant. The smaller charge contained in the CK machine would not be a serious health risk unless the unit were to sustain massive damage while in a small space; and lose the entire charge at once in a confined space.

With this in your garage, even with a garage door in place, there is still ventilation since these doors are not air tight. The fact that the charge is small, the unit is in a garage, and it's a CK machine which do not spring catastrophic leaks by themselves - you have nothing to worry about.

It is generally not possible to get any local service people to work on a Monitor Top. Most of us here who do occasionally work on other people's appliances do so as a side job part time and there are only a few of us at that. In general, as Travis said; you will need to send your fridge to a shop to get service done to it if you aren't going to do it yourself.

I believe I can speak for most of us here - that we would never bastardize a fully working Monitor Top and replace the cooling system. That would go against the spirit upon which our group is founded. We generally don't take kindly to people sharing those sort of modifications here.

As for replacing only the SO2 refrigerant with something which is not an irritant - yes that can be done - but again you won't gain much at all and there is a risk associated with making any changes to the system when it's working correctly.

Unfortunately; I can tell you for sure, from firsthand experience, what SO2 is like. If you encounter a major release of it, it makes you involuntarily exhale and close your eyes. It's an irritant - reminiscent to the smell of bus exhaust or a volcano. After you move away from it, you may sneeze a few times. It tastes bad and the taste lingers. The effect wears off as quickly as it happens; and in spite of a few incidents I have had with it - there have never been any after effects.

Most sincerely,
David

From the pictures it looks like a ck (the little dimple on top ) but they are the last of the MTs built so the they seem to have the least problems. 
There should be a mfg. tag on the back of the machine in plain sight. If not there someone one removed it I don’t understand why people do that it makes no sense. 
I agree with what everyone else has said about so2 as long as you don’t puncher a line it should be perfectly safe . I’d be more worried about the wiring it gets very crumbled over
time and can short out .

Also I see some one has changed out the controls on the front hopefully they replaced the wiring as well . If you look at some other pictures of cks you we’ll see the correct
escutcheon plate and knobs .   

Hi there. It's a touch upsetting that you are looking for someone to "euthanize" a working Monitor Top. Any of us who are capable of removing the SO2 would also be more than happy to take the unit and use it for parts or repair it. I wish you would reconsider this. Have you tried to list if on Facebook Marketplace? Also have you shared which state you are in? I'm in Alabama by the way.