First off, sorry for the length of the story. Steer away now if you don't like long winded stories. You have been warned...
Still reading? Great! This is a very interesting (in my mind) story about how I came to love everything old and cold. There is theft, drugs, death, and murder in this twisted tale. Ok, maybe not murder but I might have wanted to commit a murder by the time it was said and done. Ok, lets get going!
I know this is a response to an old post but I have always had a fascination with these old Frigidaire's with the rotary compressors.
Gill, were you ever able to find time to spruce it up? I just find it fascinating that they use a very simple type of rotary compressor with such a low pressure refrigerant. Seems like they would be pretty efficient. I'm sure that "meter-miser" isn't under strain at all under normal conditions.
So here begins my long story about my association with old frigidaire's. My original obsession with vintage refrigerators started with a 60s frigidaire upright freezer that has the same basic compressor but larger. It was in the basement of a rental house that I was staying in. It was rusty as hell, the bottom touching the floor was almost eaten through. The compressor was also very rusty and so were the lines going to the condenser coil at the back. I really doubted that it would work but after shorting the leads from the thermostat (I'm assuming that is what caused it to be abandoned) it fired up right away! It even got plenty cold. I'm sure that it is still down there slowly returning to its elemental forms. I was so fascinated that this dilapidated freezer still worked after all those years.
Move forward a couple years and I'm in a new house with a new roommate. We are on the front porch talking about life and various interests and I mention in passing that I have always wanted an antique refrigerator to call my own. At the time I had a lovely matching early 60s coldspot freezer and combination freezer / fridge. Both in great shape and I loved the fact that the freezer compartment on the fridge was manual defrost, the fridge section defrosted every time the unit shut off. It had a cold plate on the back wall which was great for chilling beer. Oh, and they both have "whirlpool" rotary compressors of their own. I still use the freezer to this day in fact. ANYWAYS, once I told him of my obsession with antique refrigerators he told me that he knew of a family friend that had a 40s frigidaire that would freeze beer. I knew that it had to be a simple fix of a stuck thermostat. Well, he proceeds to tell me that the guy would likely trade for a properly working fridge. I tell him to give this guy a call because I want his old fridge! We arrange a deal and we go out to this guys house. He is well in his 80s and is a real hoot. He was still very active and sharp witted. He did woodwork and the fridge was in his woodworking shop. He plugged it in and it purred to life and got cold within a minute. I gave him my old coldspot and he was happy to have a fridge that was in good shape. He even remembered when his father picked up the frigidaire in 1946 or 47. It was part of a rural electrification program. He lived way out in the sticks. He commented about the usual, "they don't make them like they used to".
Oh, and when I say this guy was a hoot, I mean he was eccentric. Really eccentric. He had a garden that he showed off. You know, the usual, tomatoes and peppers and then he showed off his pride...home grown marijuana plants! No joke, this guy was growing weed in a hot house that he built and had it hidden among the other plants. He even tried to give us a paper bag of the product but we kindly refused. Not due to a lack of interest mind you, it just looked like it wasn't aged properly and didn't look anything near what I was used to consuming at the time. So now you know my position on that subject. Ha!
Anyways, I should also mention at this point that I had tried my best to secure a truck to take the old frigidaire back in. This is where the logistics get tricky. We had a truck to take my old coldspot up to the farm. Everything went well there. However, the truck belonged to this roommates family and he was going to bring it back there and take his car back home which was at the farm at the time. We would be driving his car back with the fridge in it. It was a dodge calibur. Now, some of you may know that this is just a funky, slow, crossover / hatchback thingy. Obviously we couldn't stand the fridge upright like it needed to be transported. I moaned and said that this was not a good idea but he was bull headed and I had no choice. We transported the fridge laying on its door back home. It barely fit. We got it home and I put it where I wanted it. It looked so cute! I posted a picture of one that looks exactly like it. I let it sit overnight and thought that would be enough time for the oil to settle back down to the sump. Wrong! I plugged it in and the sweet sounding compressor back at the farm was gone. A gnarly, terrible metallic click was there to stay...permanently. I'm not sure why it never went away but the oil must have blocked the restricting device. It would get cold but would never properly frost the evap. I always regretted transporting it like we did. It never really recovered. So it sat in my house not really being used.
Eventually I found out that my roommate was a pathological liar. He really would make up stories about just anything, for no reason at all. All of this came to a head and he decided to move out. I was honestly relieved. Well, come to find out when I was at work one day he decided to take the fridge that we had both previously agreed was mine (I traded for it, remember?). When I came home, it was the first thing I noticed. All of his stuff and my fridge were gone. I was hot! I tried to call him but his line had been disconnected. He had switched numbers. Great. My other roommate told me that he knew about this and I asked him why he didn't stop him from taking it. He said that he thought it was rightfully his. Obviously he really never paid attention to all of my nights talking about the damn thing. I don't blame him. I do tend to ramble. You are still reading right? Great! So this other roomie gives me his new number which this guy stupidly gave out. I get him to answer the phone and gently ask him to give me back the fridge that is rightfully mine. I didn't even mention the bills he skipped out on. He hung up. So, there was not much I could do being that I didn't have any clue where he took it and his sorry ass. Sorry, but this guy really did end up being a royal pain in the ass.
Anyways (again), I was browsing through craigslist the following week and low and behold...I found another frigidaire! Exactly the same as the last one. Exactly. The. Same. Even down to the handle placement. Joy of joys! I phoned the person and confirmed that it worked and went to go look at it. It was only 5 blocks away from my house! I paid for it and brought it home in my Dad's truck. He helped me sand it down and we gave it a good coat of paint. It looked gorgeous. Now, here is where I messed up big time. I noticed the wiring was shot. I decided to do the right thing and replace it. However, I was a dumb ass and didn't take note of where the wires went into the relay. No problem I thought, I'll just buy one of those handy "hard start" kits that I've used before on A/C equipment. To success I might add. Big mistake. Really big mistake. You see, in all of the hustle to get it going I didn't even worry about the dilapidated door seal. It was in real rough shape. No problem I thought. I will just use weather stripping placed over it for the time being. I trucked it inside and plugged it in. It fired up great and got cold in a hurry. I didn't even think about it. I went downstairs and watched a movie. I thought, when I come back upstairs I'll have a nice and cold fridge to look at. Wrong! I think what happened was that the fridge got cold. The cold control shut off the compressor. The cold air leaked out of the poor door seal. The cold control kicked back on and the compressor failed to start. Normally this is where the thermal overload would kick in but alas, the hard start kit was meant for a much larger compressor and it never kicked the stalled compressor off.
As I came upstairs I was greeted by the peculiar scent of fresh, hot paint. I had just painted the compressor with a rust proofing primer since it had some surface rust. I knew that my goose was cooked as soon as I smelled that smell. I ran to the fridge and sure enough, it was humming angrily. I unplugged it and put my hand on the compressor and heard my flesh sizzle. It was that hot. I knew immediately that it was done for. I waited a long while for it to cool down. I tried to start it in vain. It made a half attempt to start but only turned for a half second. I then put on my steel toe boots and gave it a good kick. Nothing (Hey, it worked for me on an old rotary compressor before!) I never could get it to budge even though I tried multiple times. I even switched the run and start windings and came up with the same result. I have always been really upset that after that whole ordeal, loosing my fridge, getting one exactly like it back the next week, repainting it, plugging it in and hearing it run, I was the one responsible for its death. It is still sitting in my garage, collecting dust.
Another twist to this story is that last summer I met a very nice gentleman who does appliance repair and specializes in refrigeration work. We met at a car show and he had a lovely Packard with a vacuum powered "wolf whistle". I saw an old Shasta trailer nearby and decided to take a look. I noticed that it had been beautifully restored. I secretly want one of these to go sight seeing in. It also had the original ice box, or so I thought. When I opened the door I was greeted by a modern "mini" fridge evaporator coil and thermostat. I asked the kind lady who did the work of retrofitting this old ice box with a refrigeration system. She pointed me over to the gentleman with the Packard. A ha! I went over and talked to the guy and told him my story about the frigidaire. He said that I was in luck, he was a certified frigidaire tech from the 70s and still had certifications. He said that it was very possible for me to find a replacement compressor because he knew of a closed down frigidaire shop which had new old stock parts. He told me to contact the owner and see if anything was still there. What luck!
Side note, he also said that he made service calls to all kinds of antique fridges in his time as a service tech. Once every 5 years he said that he would get a call to replace a belt on a...you guessed it, belt driven frigidaire from the 20s or 30s. He said it had been in the same family since new and that it has never once needed a charge of refrigerant. I guess you really do loose it if you don't use it. He also had an interesting story about a call he received from a frantic wife who just had a hole appear in her kitchen wall. One of these old rotary compressor beauties had had enough and let loose the winds of God himself. Somehow pressure built up to the point of the compressor blowing itself up and sent shrapnel through the kitchen wall! He still has no clue how that happened.
When I tried to contact the owner of the old shop he was nowhere to be found. I later found out that all of the equipment had been moved somewhere and that it was now owned by a youth group. Damn.
After that dead end I decided to look for another fridge to lavish my affection on. I eventually found my 1957 Westinghouse. I restored it, painted it, put a new door seal on it and love it! Now I have a wonderful monitor top to lavish even more affection on! To tell the truth, I honestly don't think that I would have my monitor top if it weren't for my frigidaire fiasco. Maybe I'm just not meant to have a late 40s frigidaire with its lovely meter miser rotary wonder. Who knows? I would love to get it running though. I know this was a LONG story but I thought it was worth sharing. Let me know if any of you have every had any moments of dumb assery where you screwed up something important and wish that you could do things over. I sure have learned a lot since then. Mainly from this site! You all are a great wealth of information.
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