Post by ckfan on Sept 13, 2016 15:01:10 GMT
Yes, that is correct, I don't know the exact date of this fridge and it is driving me crazy! After looking up all kinds of old ads and trying to find the history of the coldspot refrigerators I have come up with almost nothing. If any of you know more about the history of coldspot please chime in, I would greatly appreciate it.
Now, to this particular example. Unfortunately this fridge has lived a hard life. I honestly think at some point it was dropped during moving. One of the porcelain panels was bent in and I had to re fasten a brad to get it back into position. There are still spider cracks where it got bent in but it isn't terrible. What is worse is that the door hinges were both very loose. To compound this problem the frame is made out of wood. Oh boy. The holes where the screws for the hinges went into the wood frame of the door were completely stripped out. So I had three choices. Replace the wood which would involve completely taking the door skins off front and back. Fix the hole with toothpicks and wood glue and pray that it holds. Or buy a set of screws two sizes larger and pray that it holds. Guess which option I chose. The larger screws actually went in very well and bit even better. Only problems I encountered was that one of the old screws was broken off and I had no way to get it out and one of the new screws didn't quite bite as much as I hoped that it did but it still was somewhat snug. So the door is held on by 4 screws that bit in well, and 1 that was so so. Now that the door was stable I put a new door seal on. Because of the damage of the drop the door was still slightly out of alignment and was more open towards the hinge at the top vs the bottom. Unfortunately the hinge won't come off (at least I can't figure out how to get the pin out) so that means...I bought a large seal to take up the gap. This actually worked a lot better than I thought it would but then another problem cropped up.
Take a look at the pictures and pay close attention to the picture of the strike. Notice anything unusual? That's right, the strike is so worn out that part of the metal is completely gone. You can tell just how much has been worn away due to the holes in it. I think it is made out of brass. I drilled out the screw holes to move the strike out due to the fat gasket. This helped but the strike is so worn that it just barely holds the door closed and won't give enough resistance to really seal the door. Now, look at the picture of the door latch. See how worn out it is? Very sad. I think what happened is that the fridge got damaged, it was still used for quite a while with the door being bent slightly like it still is and that wore down the strike and latch to the current states that they are in. It is really a shame because...
The rest of the unit is in fantastic shape. Gill visited the garage where this one was stored and hooked his Annie up to it to see if it would start. It did. I thought that it might be out of gas since it didn't really do anything after having it on for a while. I was wrong, it takes a while for it to cool down but once it gets going it cools fast. This compressor is one of the quietest that I have ever heard. I heard a little rattle last night and it actually ended up being one of the cooling rings being loose on the compressor. I rotated it and the noise went away. Just a very gentle hum. I am not positive about this but I think that this compressor is the great granddaddy of the compressors that would eventually wind up in the later coldspots and even whirlpool refrigerators. It kind of sounds like a rotary vane compressor. The fan is a two blade job which does its job well and it is also quiet. It also moves a lot of air. The way it is set up, it pulls air in from a vent in the back. It goes over the condenser coil and over the compressor. It then exits out of another vent in the back.
After an hour of running the evaporator coil was very frosty. A little while later the unit shut off...and then kicked back on 5 minutes later. I think that is due to the poor door sealing. The cabinet temp was perfect though, 36 degrees at mid setting. So, if I can get the door strike and latch fixed and the door can seal properly I really think this little fridge has a lot of potential! I would think that it has to be relatively rare. I've never seen another coldspot of this vintage besides Gills older direct drive unit. Now that I think about it, I wonder if this compressor shares any roots with the direct drive compressor in his fridge. Very interesting. I really like this fridge and wanted to make a post about it a long time ago but since the door has been giving me trouble I decided to fix it. Well, I don't really know how to fix these issues with the latch and strike so I hope that somebody could give me some insight with this. I know that somebody will have a good idea about it (I'm looking at you Doug!)
To view the photos in this post, please follow this link: drive.google.com/open?id=0B8_jm7K-ahMaMTBURmcwR1h3RVk
Now, to this particular example. Unfortunately this fridge has lived a hard life. I honestly think at some point it was dropped during moving. One of the porcelain panels was bent in and I had to re fasten a brad to get it back into position. There are still spider cracks where it got bent in but it isn't terrible. What is worse is that the door hinges were both very loose. To compound this problem the frame is made out of wood. Oh boy. The holes where the screws for the hinges went into the wood frame of the door were completely stripped out. So I had three choices. Replace the wood which would involve completely taking the door skins off front and back. Fix the hole with toothpicks and wood glue and pray that it holds. Or buy a set of screws two sizes larger and pray that it holds. Guess which option I chose. The larger screws actually went in very well and bit even better. Only problems I encountered was that one of the old screws was broken off and I had no way to get it out and one of the new screws didn't quite bite as much as I hoped that it did but it still was somewhat snug. So the door is held on by 4 screws that bit in well, and 1 that was so so. Now that the door was stable I put a new door seal on. Because of the damage of the drop the door was still slightly out of alignment and was more open towards the hinge at the top vs the bottom. Unfortunately the hinge won't come off (at least I can't figure out how to get the pin out) so that means...I bought a large seal to take up the gap. This actually worked a lot better than I thought it would but then another problem cropped up.
Take a look at the pictures and pay close attention to the picture of the strike. Notice anything unusual? That's right, the strike is so worn out that part of the metal is completely gone. You can tell just how much has been worn away due to the holes in it. I think it is made out of brass. I drilled out the screw holes to move the strike out due to the fat gasket. This helped but the strike is so worn that it just barely holds the door closed and won't give enough resistance to really seal the door. Now, look at the picture of the door latch. See how worn out it is? Very sad. I think what happened is that the fridge got damaged, it was still used for quite a while with the door being bent slightly like it still is and that wore down the strike and latch to the current states that they are in. It is really a shame because...
The rest of the unit is in fantastic shape. Gill visited the garage where this one was stored and hooked his Annie up to it to see if it would start. It did. I thought that it might be out of gas since it didn't really do anything after having it on for a while. I was wrong, it takes a while for it to cool down but once it gets going it cools fast. This compressor is one of the quietest that I have ever heard. I heard a little rattle last night and it actually ended up being one of the cooling rings being loose on the compressor. I rotated it and the noise went away. Just a very gentle hum. I am not positive about this but I think that this compressor is the great granddaddy of the compressors that would eventually wind up in the later coldspots and even whirlpool refrigerators. It kind of sounds like a rotary vane compressor. The fan is a two blade job which does its job well and it is also quiet. It also moves a lot of air. The way it is set up, it pulls air in from a vent in the back. It goes over the condenser coil and over the compressor. It then exits out of another vent in the back.
After an hour of running the evaporator coil was very frosty. A little while later the unit shut off...and then kicked back on 5 minutes later. I think that is due to the poor door sealing. The cabinet temp was perfect though, 36 degrees at mid setting. So, if I can get the door strike and latch fixed and the door can seal properly I really think this little fridge has a lot of potential! I would think that it has to be relatively rare. I've never seen another coldspot of this vintage besides Gills older direct drive unit. Now that I think about it, I wonder if this compressor shares any roots with the direct drive compressor in his fridge. Very interesting. I really like this fridge and wanted to make a post about it a long time ago but since the door has been giving me trouble I decided to fix it. Well, I don't really know how to fix these issues with the latch and strike so I hope that somebody could give me some insight with this. I know that somebody will have a good idea about it (I'm looking at you Doug!)
To view the photos in this post, please follow this link: drive.google.com/open?id=0B8_jm7K-ahMaMTBURmcwR1h3RVk
