Post by ckfan on May 11, 2016 17:14:33 GMT
Hello everyone,
I am making some good progress in getting my 1949 GE chest freezer back up and running. I have met several challenges but have gotten most of the wiring job done. Let me start by saying that I still have some work to do but I am going to post my current progress. I will post more as I get more done. This is going to be a lengthy guide so let's dive in!
First and foremost, if you or someone you know have a similar vintage GE freezer or "Spacemaker" refrigerator, this guide will be handy to you. All of these old units need to be re wired. That doesn't mean that all of the wiring is bad but it can be said with certainty that some of the wiring will be in a dangerous state.
The first thing I did was remove the breaker strips all around the body of the cabinet. All you have to do is remove the two sets of screws from every "textolite" strip. Gently remove them from the old gasket and set them in a place where they won't get broken. The gasket on my freezer, and I'm sure every other freezer of this vintage, was in really poor shape. I have removed all of it along with the breaker strips and saved a piece of the gasket to match a picture so that I can order a new one. I will post what gasket I order and if it worked right once I get to that part. With the strips out of the way you can see all of the old insulation. Mine was nice and dry, nothing to worry about. If yours is wet, you will have to remove it and either dry it out or replace it. Also make sure that the inner cabinet liner is not rusty at this point. Mine looks perfectly fine.
Next, I removed the insulation from above the thermostat capillary tube holder. This is located on the rear right side of the cabinet on my unit. It is held in with 3 screws. By removing the insulation above it and by carefully prying up the edge of the inner "cold wall" liner I was able to get my arm in, barely. Then I could hold the mounting plate for the capillary tube as I removed the three screws that hold it in. This allowed me to remove the thermostat from the rear of the cabinet. Obviously you don't have to do this step if you are keeping the original thermostat. You can leave the tube connected. I will post which thermostat I go with and if it works or not.
The next step was to run new wire for the "system monitor" light located at the bottom front of the cabinet. The wire comes into the back of the cabinet and then runs to the left side and then to the left front corner. In this corner you will find a separate thermostat that runs the light. The thermostat turns the light on only when the temperature of the freezing compartment is in the "safe" zone. The light will go off if the temperature is too hot or too cold. Metal clips hold the thermostat capillary tube to the side of the "cold box". Undo these clips, take out the two screws holding the thermostat to the bracket and then you can get at the thermostat to re wire it. Oddly enough, there is a resistor in line with the power going from the thermostat to the light at the bottom. I decided to remove this resistor because I don't think that it is necessary to use with the LED light that I am currently using. I think that GE decided to put this resistor in line because they were using 7 watt bulbs and wanted to not have the bulb get too hot or too bright. Another theory is that the resistor is made to prevent the thermostat contacts from arcing. I want to hear your opinions on whether or not you think the resistor is necessary. It is still indecent shape. Look at the picture of the inside of the thermostat too, notice how there is no spring action for turning the light on or off. I think this is why it is only rated for .5 amps, to prevent arcing when the contacts are really close together. Then, with new wire ran to the thermostat, I ran wire down to the light socket. The old socket was in bad shape and could not be re wired. I put in a "c7" socket from a set of Christmas lights. It works great!
The next step was to do the hard wiring underneath of the cabinet. I honestly think that I couldn't have done it if I had not removed the whole "condensing unit" from underneath the cabinet. There is simply no room to work underneath the cabinet. First, locate the bracket at the back of the cabinet that holds a power cord and the refrigerant lines in place. Remove this bracket but leave the top bracket in place. In order to remove the unit, six bolts have to be removed. Four are at the back, two are at the front. Once they are removed, the whole unit can slide out. Carefully, very carefully slide the unit out. Constantly check the refrigerant lines to make sure that you aren't kinking or bending them too much. I can't stress how careful you have to be here. Go slowly and you will be fine. The unit actually slides out pretty easy.
Now that you can actually see the whole unit, compressor, fan, and condensing coil, you can work on it much easier. The first thing I did was to remove the fan. You will see three bolts that hold it. Remove those and the whole fan assembly with bracket will come out. At this point you should vacuum all of the dust from behind the coil, the blades, and the motor and bracket. There was quite a bit of dust on mine. Then you can remove the bracket by removing 3 screws that hold it onto the fan. Next, put the fan motor in a vice. Take a large pair of channel locks and remove the rear plate (on the side of the motor that doesn't have a shaft). You can do this by twisting off the plate with the channel locks. When the plate is removed you can get to the oiling felt inside. Mine was nice and clean since it has been sealed its whole life. I then liberally oiled the felt inside until I could squeeze oil out by gently pressing my finger against it. Next, to make future oiling easier, I drilled a small hole in the top of the backing cover. I made sure that the hole aligned with the felt so that when oil is dripped in, it will soak the felt that it needs to. Then I gently tapped the cover back on the back of the fan. Next, I took the original 3 wire cord coming from the fan motor and inspected it. On mine, it looks to be in good shape. I couldn't actually get the motor apart either which led me to tie in a new wire to the existing wire on the fan. I secured the wires together by soldering them. I then taped them individually and then taped them as a group. This should make for a nice, permanent cord replacement. Then I put the fan back into its spot with bracket.
The next step was to re wire the compressor. This is hard. To be honest, the cord going to the compressor was in fantastic shape and even the inner wires were in good shape. I went through the effort of getting the terminal cover cut out so I decided to replace the wires. The first thing you have to do is to take an angle grinder with a cut off wheel and cut a square hole in the terminal cover where the cord for the compressor comes through. The metal is thick so it takes a while. Be patient and don't put too much pressure on the cut off wheel. Also, be sure to constantly check the depth of the cut so that you don't damage the terminals underneath the cover. I cut out a rough, very rough, square and then took a screwdriver to the rough ends to smooth out the jagged edges. Now that the cover is cut out, you can easily get to the three terminals. If you take a soldering iron, I used a 40 watt and it worked fine, you can heat up the connections and pull out the old wire. I actually was able to re use the old metal bands that hold the wire to the terminals with solder. I just melted the old solder out with my iron and wiped off the excess solder by running my iron over an old wet sponge. I then put the new three wire cord into position and soldered the wires back onto the terminals. After tugging the wires to make sure that the connections were solid, I taped over the cut out hole with electrical tape.
With the fan and the compressor having new wire on them, the only thing to do is to re wire the relay with the new wires and to run and cut a new "power feed" cable up to where the thermostat is. I measured and cut a length of wire going from the relay up to where the new thermostat will be. I then secured all 3 wires onto the rail with the original wire loops. They just have one bolt that holds them on. Undo the bold, take out the old wire, and then put in the new wire and tighten up the bolt. Simple as that. Now that all of the work is done at the back of the unit, you can move the whole condensing unit back under the cabinet. Again, be careful to not damage or kink the refrigerant lines. Put in the six bolts that hold the rails up onto the cabinet. You may have trouble aligning the holes, I did. Do the rear (4) bolts first, then move to the front two bolts and use your finger to feel out the proper alignment. Once you have the unit bolted securely to the body you can then move on to putting the new wires in the relay. The relay is located at the front, right behind the kick plate so it is very easy to get to. I am going to put a solid state relay in and will update this thread once I have it wired in and have confirmed that it is working.
My next step, after ordering new parts will be to re wire the light bulb that is in the lid. This looks like it will be relatively easy. Just remove the top breaker strips and you should be able to get to the wiring. I will update the thread once I get that accomplished.
Fingers crossed, this project looks like it is going to extend the life of this freezer for many more years.
I am making some good progress in getting my 1949 GE chest freezer back up and running. I have met several challenges but have gotten most of the wiring job done. Let me start by saying that I still have some work to do but I am going to post my current progress. I will post more as I get more done. This is going to be a lengthy guide so let's dive in!
First and foremost, if you or someone you know have a similar vintage GE freezer or "Spacemaker" refrigerator, this guide will be handy to you. All of these old units need to be re wired. That doesn't mean that all of the wiring is bad but it can be said with certainty that some of the wiring will be in a dangerous state.
The first thing I did was remove the breaker strips all around the body of the cabinet. All you have to do is remove the two sets of screws from every "textolite" strip. Gently remove them from the old gasket and set them in a place where they won't get broken. The gasket on my freezer, and I'm sure every other freezer of this vintage, was in really poor shape. I have removed all of it along with the breaker strips and saved a piece of the gasket to match a picture so that I can order a new one. I will post what gasket I order and if it worked right once I get to that part. With the strips out of the way you can see all of the old insulation. Mine was nice and dry, nothing to worry about. If yours is wet, you will have to remove it and either dry it out or replace it. Also make sure that the inner cabinet liner is not rusty at this point. Mine looks perfectly fine.
Next, I removed the insulation from above the thermostat capillary tube holder. This is located on the rear right side of the cabinet on my unit. It is held in with 3 screws. By removing the insulation above it and by carefully prying up the edge of the inner "cold wall" liner I was able to get my arm in, barely. Then I could hold the mounting plate for the capillary tube as I removed the three screws that hold it in. This allowed me to remove the thermostat from the rear of the cabinet. Obviously you don't have to do this step if you are keeping the original thermostat. You can leave the tube connected. I will post which thermostat I go with and if it works or not.
The next step was to run new wire for the "system monitor" light located at the bottom front of the cabinet. The wire comes into the back of the cabinet and then runs to the left side and then to the left front corner. In this corner you will find a separate thermostat that runs the light. The thermostat turns the light on only when the temperature of the freezing compartment is in the "safe" zone. The light will go off if the temperature is too hot or too cold. Metal clips hold the thermostat capillary tube to the side of the "cold box". Undo these clips, take out the two screws holding the thermostat to the bracket and then you can get at the thermostat to re wire it. Oddly enough, there is a resistor in line with the power going from the thermostat to the light at the bottom. I decided to remove this resistor because I don't think that it is necessary to use with the LED light that I am currently using. I think that GE decided to put this resistor in line because they were using 7 watt bulbs and wanted to not have the bulb get too hot or too bright. Another theory is that the resistor is made to prevent the thermostat contacts from arcing. I want to hear your opinions on whether or not you think the resistor is necessary. It is still indecent shape. Look at the picture of the inside of the thermostat too, notice how there is no spring action for turning the light on or off. I think this is why it is only rated for .5 amps, to prevent arcing when the contacts are really close together. Then, with new wire ran to the thermostat, I ran wire down to the light socket. The old socket was in bad shape and could not be re wired. I put in a "c7" socket from a set of Christmas lights. It works great!
The next step was to do the hard wiring underneath of the cabinet. I honestly think that I couldn't have done it if I had not removed the whole "condensing unit" from underneath the cabinet. There is simply no room to work underneath the cabinet. First, locate the bracket at the back of the cabinet that holds a power cord and the refrigerant lines in place. Remove this bracket but leave the top bracket in place. In order to remove the unit, six bolts have to be removed. Four are at the back, two are at the front. Once they are removed, the whole unit can slide out. Carefully, very carefully slide the unit out. Constantly check the refrigerant lines to make sure that you aren't kinking or bending them too much. I can't stress how careful you have to be here. Go slowly and you will be fine. The unit actually slides out pretty easy.
Now that you can actually see the whole unit, compressor, fan, and condensing coil, you can work on it much easier. The first thing I did was to remove the fan. You will see three bolts that hold it. Remove those and the whole fan assembly with bracket will come out. At this point you should vacuum all of the dust from behind the coil, the blades, and the motor and bracket. There was quite a bit of dust on mine. Then you can remove the bracket by removing 3 screws that hold it onto the fan. Next, put the fan motor in a vice. Take a large pair of channel locks and remove the rear plate (on the side of the motor that doesn't have a shaft). You can do this by twisting off the plate with the channel locks. When the plate is removed you can get to the oiling felt inside. Mine was nice and clean since it has been sealed its whole life. I then liberally oiled the felt inside until I could squeeze oil out by gently pressing my finger against it. Next, to make future oiling easier, I drilled a small hole in the top of the backing cover. I made sure that the hole aligned with the felt so that when oil is dripped in, it will soak the felt that it needs to. Then I gently tapped the cover back on the back of the fan. Next, I took the original 3 wire cord coming from the fan motor and inspected it. On mine, it looks to be in good shape. I couldn't actually get the motor apart either which led me to tie in a new wire to the existing wire on the fan. I secured the wires together by soldering them. I then taped them individually and then taped them as a group. This should make for a nice, permanent cord replacement. Then I put the fan back into its spot with bracket.
The next step was to re wire the compressor. This is hard. To be honest, the cord going to the compressor was in fantastic shape and even the inner wires were in good shape. I went through the effort of getting the terminal cover cut out so I decided to replace the wires. The first thing you have to do is to take an angle grinder with a cut off wheel and cut a square hole in the terminal cover where the cord for the compressor comes through. The metal is thick so it takes a while. Be patient and don't put too much pressure on the cut off wheel. Also, be sure to constantly check the depth of the cut so that you don't damage the terminals underneath the cover. I cut out a rough, very rough, square and then took a screwdriver to the rough ends to smooth out the jagged edges. Now that the cover is cut out, you can easily get to the three terminals. If you take a soldering iron, I used a 40 watt and it worked fine, you can heat up the connections and pull out the old wire. I actually was able to re use the old metal bands that hold the wire to the terminals with solder. I just melted the old solder out with my iron and wiped off the excess solder by running my iron over an old wet sponge. I then put the new three wire cord into position and soldered the wires back onto the terminals. After tugging the wires to make sure that the connections were solid, I taped over the cut out hole with electrical tape.
With the fan and the compressor having new wire on them, the only thing to do is to re wire the relay with the new wires and to run and cut a new "power feed" cable up to where the thermostat is. I measured and cut a length of wire going from the relay up to where the new thermostat will be. I then secured all 3 wires onto the rail with the original wire loops. They just have one bolt that holds them on. Undo the bold, take out the old wire, and then put in the new wire and tighten up the bolt. Simple as that. Now that all of the work is done at the back of the unit, you can move the whole condensing unit back under the cabinet. Again, be careful to not damage or kink the refrigerant lines. Put in the six bolts that hold the rails up onto the cabinet. You may have trouble aligning the holes, I did. Do the rear (4) bolts first, then move to the front two bolts and use your finger to feel out the proper alignment. Once you have the unit bolted securely to the body you can then move on to putting the new wires in the relay. The relay is located at the front, right behind the kick plate so it is very easy to get to. I am going to put a solid state relay in and will update this thread once I have it wired in and have confirmed that it is working.
My next step, after ordering new parts will be to re wire the light bulb that is in the lid. This looks like it will be relatively easy. Just remove the top breaker strips and you should be able to get to the wiring. I will update the thread once I get that accomplished.
Fingers crossed, this project looks like it is going to extend the life of this freezer for many more years.
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