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Post by jan8418 on Jul 28, 2023 14:55:48 GMT
![]() Our family holiday house had a General Electric fridge running as a spare in the shed for the past 40 years. It always worked great and is (cosmetically) in a great shape. It however short-circuited a few years ago and we stopped using it since. I would love to save this and get it working again..! Apparently my great-grand-parents bought it new in the 1960s, but from what I have learned online thus far (forgive me, as i am a newbie to fridges!) it's actually from 1939. The code on the back is JB4-39-A I had a local electrician/repairshop take a look but they said it's too much hassle to get it fixed: you won't get the spare parts, it's running on gas/liquid which you cannot use/buy anymore etc. I hope the community here can help me out! Few questions: - does the model number indeed imply it's from 1939? - where to get started with repairing it or diagnosing the issue? i'm not technical and don't have experience repairing such items - i found the manuals online here (on the cool386 website); is this sufficient to provide to a hobby repairman to get started? what about spare parts? - is retrofitting it even an option? We live in the Netherlands, and i think the (repairs) ecosystem and community around vintage fridges isn't as strong as in the USA. So might not be as easy to find specialists to help me here with it. All help is much appreciated!     |
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Post by ckfan on Jul 28, 2023 15:24:45 GMT
That is a nice flat top you have there. They are usually very reliable. When you say that it shorted out, that makes me think that the wiring insulation is crumbling apart as they often do on these and that caused wires to become bare and caused the short circuit to happen. You may just need to rewire the fridge to get it going again. You will need a strong soldering iron to replace the wires on the compressor terminals. Otherwise you would just need basic hand tools to get the wiring replaced. Here is a guide that I made that shows how to rewire a flat top. Please let me know if you have any questions. monitortop.freeforums.net/thread/811/re-wired-flat-top?page=1 |
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Post by cablehack on Jul 28, 2023 23:09:17 GMT
Yes it is from 1939. These Flat Tops were the last of GE's pre-war development, and are very reliable and efficient. Since they were only made with 110V compressors, yours will have a stepdown transformer added. As ckfan suggests, a rewire should be all that's needed to get it going. I wouldn't worry too much about parts - it uses the CK compressor which does not fail, unless someone does something like run it without a start relay. That was the only instance I can think of where one has failed. The controls and relays can be rebuilt if need be, or be replaced with generic modern parts if you really want to, but for this model it's unlikely that will be required. There are modern refrigerants that will work, but since the system is sealed, there really has to be some kind of physical damage to require replacing it.
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