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Post by ckfan on Jul 1, 2016 15:09:26 GMT
Hey everyone! I think it is safe to say that all of us love vintage cold making contraptions, but which one was your "first"? You know, the one that got you into the hobby? For me it was a humble 1979 Whirlpool "Mark I" which is a lovely shade of avocado green. I know, don't laugh. I just wanted something that looked old. Oh, how much I have learned since then. For me, that was about 7 years ago. Now that fridge is serving major duty as our main kitchen fridge (not for long). Here is a picture of what ours looks like, except for the rust and the wrong color. Beautiful, isn't it? All joking aside, show off your first fridge and lets get a neat thread going here! Bonus points for the machine having a neat back story of how it came to you. I just picked mine up from the local "Re-Store". To view the photos in this post, please follow this link: drive.google.com/open?id=0B8_jm7K-ahMacUM2SkxTQkZ3UHc
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Post by Travis on Jul 1, 2016 22:38:43 GMT
The vintage appliance that got me started was a 1951 Frigidaire that was my grandparents. It lived in my grandpas garage until the mid-1990's when it came to me. For some reason, I was fascinated with it as a kid. In 1996 or so, I decided I had to have a monitor top. This was before I was on-line and they were hard to find. An older friend gave me a CK2-B16 that had belonged to his grandma.
The Frigidaire eventually went to a friend of mine. It died in a house fire. That original CK2-B16 went to another friend of mine. It was restored and unfortunately painted red and white.
I have had so many. I can't explain why I have fixated on the DR's. The only reason that I've tried to stick to pre WWII models is the lack of space.
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Post by coldspaces on Jul 2, 2016 5:27:29 GMT
My oldest son and I brought home a 1950 Westinghouse about 3.5 years ago that started it all. The bottom of cabinet is almost completely rusted off all the way around. But she is still full of R-12 and he was using it till just the other day. The catch on the door broke so I rewired a 41 Flat Top last night and it is now his current garage frig. I almost brought that same Westy home 14 years before but did ask.
Well that led to watching Craigslist and finding the 32 Dr that led me to the Flickr group cablehack stared. Wow have we gone a long way since then.
I have worked on more than one of those Whirlpools you have ckfan. Pre everyone bought each other out almost makes it worth a complete restore some day. It was made the year I graduated high school.
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Post by ckfan on Jul 2, 2016 22:32:05 GMT
Gill,
In your experience have you found the old whirlpools to be reliable? I've had pretty good luck with this one. I also think that the compressor in mine is the descendant of the old seeger compressor that is in my 1930s coldspot. It looks the same and sounds the same. The only difference I can see is the location of the terminals.
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Post by cablehack on Jul 13, 2016 23:35:07 GMT
For me it was the CA-2. I didn't know much about fridges at all, but I did know I wanted a monitor top. They're as rare as hen's teeth in this part of the world, so after waiting years for one to appear on ebay, it would be a case of buying it working or not. In February 2012, my waiting came to an end when one actually did turn up. Of course, it wasn't working, but it was only $150, and it was only about an hour and half drive away. I drove up this incredibly steep hill to this guy's place and my heart sank when I first saw the fridge. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and when the guy lifted the top off with his engine hoist, I figured a lot heavier also. And there was this non original transformer which I could barely lift that had been used with it. Anyway, I got it all home, and slid the cooling unit off the back of my truck onto a pile of milk crates at just the right height. There was no way I could lift it! The cabinet was easy to move; just like any other piece of furniture. Then I came to the realisation, I'm stuck with this now. It's big, I can't move it, and it doesn't work! What have I got myself into now? It must be remembered at this time that there was nothing but negativity about faulty monitor tops - all the refrigeration forums said they can't be repaired etc. etc. poisonous, permanently sealed, can't be refilled, and so on. As I looked closely at my new acquistion, I started to realise that I could see all the parts that made up a refrigerator. The compressor, condenser, float valve, and evaporator were all there to see. In fact, as far as I could tell, all the parts of the classic text book diagram of refrigeration were there. I couldn't understand why everyone said they can't be repaired. Anyway, it was a case of I can't see why it shouldn't work again; fix the leak, refill it with refrigerant and it should work. And, I knew very well that no one else would touch it, so I'd be the one doing the work! Effectively, I was forced to learn refrigeration because that's the only way I'd get a working monitor top, and I certainly got more than I bargained for - just fix the leak & refill; yeah - right! Learning to restore a fridge that had been contaminated by its previous damage was throwing me in the deep end, and as seen by my postings here and in the flickr group, it was a lot of learning the hard way, coming up against obstacles all the time, but got there in the end With that experience, the CA-1 was just plain sailing. The bizarre thing with this was that it was a year to the day since I got the CA-2 when it turned up. The owner said it was leaking. I was curious so powered it up with the door open. All looked OK but then the float chamber started to fill - and once the valve lifted, I got a spray in the face from near the evaporator, I could see he was right; yes there was a leak! I knew many of the CA quirks by then, so the routine of restoration wasn't daunting at all, but there was something new for this one which I hadn't experienced before; installing a cap tube. I followed jhigdon's advice and it all went well. To my knowledge, it was the second CA ever to be fitted with one. Aside from monitor tops, the only two fridges I've played with since then were two absorption type fridges; something new and interesting to learn about. One had a faulty thermostat; some horrid electronic thing with a microprocessor. I simply replaced it with a generic mechanical thermostat and it works 100%. Why a microprocessor in a thermostat you might ask? Well, it turns out that it's used to switch the heating element off for 2hrs in every 24, so as to provide an automatic defrost. Given what I've done, the obvious thing is to use a plug in timer to serve this function
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Post by timeswelding on Aug 3, 2016 11:05:05 GMT
Refrigerators by KIEIS got me started. The Commercial refrigerator, Vertical Freezers, Deep Freezer offered by kieis are best as they are more reliable and durable you can check it at Kieis.com Maybe you should limit your posts to the classifieds section since you are so desperately trying to pedal KIEIS products.
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Post by Travis on Aug 3, 2016 18:53:47 GMT
Refrigerators by KIEIS got me started. The Commercial refrigerator, Vertical Freezers, Deep Freezer offered by kieis are best as they are more reliable and durable you can check it at Kieis.com Kirti123, I really do appreciate your enthusiasm for your KIEIS products. This forum is for the discussion, appreciation and repair of the General Electric monitor top refrigerators. Sometimes we get a little crazy here and talk about other vintage brands. We tend to stick with 1950's and older. I am afraid that you will have a very hard time convincing any of our members to buy new, let alone a brand we are unfamiliar with. Unless you can post a picture of a pre 1950 KIESIS, I am not interested.
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Post by stlvortac on Aug 3, 2016 22:13:14 GMT
Why do I have a feeling they are of the same quality of the guys trying to sell these gems in gas station parking lots.
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Post by cablehack on Aug 3, 2016 23:31:28 GMT
We won't be having any more advertising from kirti123.
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Post by timeswelding on Aug 4, 2016 0:49:44 GMT
We won't be having any more advertising from kirti123. That's a shame. I was really enjoying our witty banter.
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Post by ckfan on Aug 4, 2016 17:52:10 GMT
We won't be having any more advertising from kirti123. That's a shame. I was really enjoying our witty banter. Oh boy, that is a relief. We can have witty banter regardless! I had no clue that this thread would start all of this nonsense!
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Post by timeswelding on Aug 4, 2016 17:53:49 GMT
Maybe not this thread. Kirti has been all over the forum. Check her recent posts.
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Post by ckfan on Aug 4, 2016 18:12:26 GMT
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Post by stlvortac on Aug 5, 2016 23:10:12 GMT
Why do I have a feeling they are of the same quality of the guys trying to sell these gems in gas station parking lots. Fixed that for you. HAHA! Finally truth in advertising!!
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Post by mencho on Aug 31, 2016 22:55:33 GMT
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