CK-2-B16

There should be holes in the cooling fins to hook up a hoist to. I think those weigh about 150 or so.

Hi Gilbert. 


I'm not completely sure about the weight of the cooling unit. It could weigh 150 pounds and that number gets tossed around quite a lot. I am able to pick them up manually from the floor and move them to dollies, turn them over for wiring jobs, etc. without too much trouble so I really think more like 100 pounds is reasonable. It's definitely too heavy for one person to remove it from the cabinet; but once it's off the cabinet and on the floor, it's manageable.



The strap (seen in my videos) for top hoisting is a plain nylon sling. It has a loop at each end. The ends are fed downward through the cooling fins until they are visible below the condenser, between the condenser and the cabinet top. When both ends of the strap are visible there, insert a short section of tubing through each nylon strap loop. Be sure they are exactly opposite each other, for balanced lifting. That can be heavy-wall PVC pipe or 1" wood dowel, or anything really. Once the strap has a tube through each end loop, the tubes will block the strap from pulling up through the fins. The hoist will pull the strap up, and the tube segments will lift the cooling unit by the bottom of the cooling fins.



I probably need to do a video on top hoisting; when I get a chance!



As for the rewiring job, there have been a lot of replies on the rewiring thread, many of them good, but some of them worse than worthless. I bet you were able to weed through them and see who has a better idea. The one point I want to make is this. It's going to take a high wattage soldering iron to do the job of melting the solder on the terminal pins since they are very heavy and absorb a lot of heat. I use a 100W iron. You can use the iron tip to melt the solder, then use the tip to scrape the original wiring sleeve and old wire off the terminal. The key point is to rewire without bending the refrigerant lines any more than necessary because leaks can and do happen. These leaks are often "pinhole" in nature and may not release SO2 at the time but over time, allow air to enter the system during operation. So, the less you can manage to bend the unit open, the better it is. That's why I recommend having a strong soldering iron and using long tools to help remove the old wiring. It won't be easy / possible to get a hand and the soldering iron in there at the same time without excess bending of the lines.



For the start-relay, there are two types. The older type is more square and boxy. It has one large brass mounting post. The newer one has a stepped cover and attaches to a bracket with a small U-bolt. Both can be rebuilt but the earlier type are easier to rebuild. I usually replace the contacts with a new set of contacts. I buy industrial relays and cut them apart to salvage the contact points. The material they are made from is a silver alloy, which is highly resistant to welding together and getting stuck. I remove the original contact point and silver-solder a new contact point in place, from the industrial relay. The older style relay is larger inside and is easier to work on. The newer style is not as easy to access the parts, but often it can be rebuilt as well. 

Sincerely,
David

I wish I could give better info, but I haven't really documented the process in detail. I salvage industrial junk and usually have relays in the parts bin which are in poor condition but have little contact wear. Most are control relays which have been switching very small currents. Things like "ice cube" relays.

As far as how to salvage the contacts; it's just a matter of breaking the relay apart and cutting the contact arms off the armature, and taking the terminals out of the base, to salvage the stationary contact points. 

Normally with a GE start-relay, there are two points which are worn out. Usually one of them has worn down to the steel spring, and the spring has arced away before the relay finally stopped working. For that one, I solder in the salvaged relay movable contact, with part of its brass spring arm. This is straightforward,however it is soldered to steel, so you will have to use acid flux to solder it; such as StayClean liquid. The movable armature contact on the GE relay is more tedious. The spring on the GE relay will need to be preserved. The old contact will need to be carefully ground away on the back, where it is "bradded" over and retained into the spring. Once the "bradded" area is gone, the contact can be punched out of the relay armature spring. The industrial relay stationary contacts are best used to replace this. I cut or break the stationary contact terminals so that I only have the silver alloy button piece. That is then placed into the hold in the GE relay armature spring, and then soldered.  Because it's a steel to silver-alloy solder job, again it requires acid flux such as StayClean liquid. Once this is done, the armature with its new contact and the relay base with its new contact MUST be washed thoroughly with hot water to remove all flux residue. Liquid acid flux is not intended for electrical soldering because it leaves a corrosive residue. In this case, it is required due to the dissimilar metals soldering because this is a mechanical repair moreso than electrical. Once the repair is done, the parts have to be cleaned of all flux residue thoroughly. 

Once the new contacts are in place, use an ignition point file to expose a fresh surface on the contacts in case some solder flowed over the face of the contacts. Dry and re-assemble the relay and then test it.  It needs to be connected to its compressor and held in the normal operating position. Start the compressor and observe the relay action. The contacts should make and break ONCE with minimal sparking. If the relay sputters, repeats, or chatters, then it needs to be adjusted. The gap between the contacts and the at-rest position of the armature are both important in making sure the relay makes and breaks cleanly. If it doesn't operate cleanly, the result will be rapid wear of the new contacts. 

Hope this helps!
Sincerely,
David