Removing cooling plate from kegerator to cool custom size keg box?

I have a edgestar kegerator a friend gave me but unfortunately it will not hold a tall 1/4 and a cornie. I was thinking of building a custom sized keg box under the bar and line it with insulation foam boards from one of the big box stores. My concern is the cooling plate/compressor will only drop the temperature to 50 degrees or something due to the increased volume it must now cool. Any thoughts on doing something like this?


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Perhaps a wooden collar attached to the unit to increase interior space of the existing kegerator?

While it can be done, removing the cooling system and building a new box is no easy task, and will cost a fair bit in materials. I wouldn't try it.


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

Unfortunately I can't do a collar as it's under my bar and won't fit that way. Perhaps I could put the kegerator under the bar sideways and build out a foam addition and mount the door facing forward? This way I wouldn't need to take the fridge apart and I'd have additional space.

Yes, a horizontal collar to extend the door.


Wilserbrewer
Http://biabbags.webs.com/

I have done this. I turned out great but it was quite the project. For fermentation it works great but I would be concerned about doing this for a kegerator where you will always be running it at low temps. The added stress on the compressor due to the increased area it needs to cool may cause the compressor to fail prematurely.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=337402

I have also done this. I had a fridge that would fit my sanke fermentor that did not work and a smaller fridge that did. I cut everything from the smaller fridge and added it to the larger fridge. You must be very careful cutting the fridges. It required a lot of cutting in order to remove the "guts" of the smaller fridge and one slip into a refrigerant line would of rendered it useless. A bunch of cutting and a can of spray foam later it all works great.

The cooling apparatus is about half the size of what was originally in the fridge. Since this is a fermentation chamber I am not terribly worried about it being undersized. The only thing that worked out conveniently was that the compressor bolted right into the mounts that were all ready there.

The only reason I went this way was because I had all of this laying around essentially making it free.