Recent content by 89OctaneStang

So, went home to visit family and they had a large request for my next brew to be the BJ's 2014 Grand Cru. Does anyone have this recipe or somewhere to start? Any advice/lessons learned working with this beer? I am still brewing partial mash... Any assistance would be awesome!

Some people ordered them black. But most I think painted theirs black. Try checking your local Craigslist because you can find decent ones there too for a fraction of the price. The money you save could go towards the build.

Possibly, but probably not. It would most definitely depend on how it all went down. Sober: forget it... A keg of your beer later and ten K sitting on the dining room table, I can not guarantee my actions at that point. Lol But I still think it would be hard to ever let this one go! You...

Finally complete. The entire project from start to finish is in the bottling/kegging forum titled Vintage Kelvinator.

I have no idea. Bought this back in 2008. Never got the courage to tackle this project until 2011. But as soon as I started pulling it apart, I realized I was getting into something a lot bigger than initially planned. Man hours would be difficult to compute. My best answer to that would be...

After plugging it in for the first time in 6 years, it took about 24 hours to get to a comfortable resting temp of 40°. The Kelvinator now has two fresh brews crashing and carbonating. I can not wait to pull the first draw off this beast!

The relay and new wiring was then put back into place finishing this off.

The old power supply was a white two prong cord. We replaced this with a three prong adding the ground. The black and white power supply was added and green ground went the the body. The old brown wire was the original thermostat. We bypassed this because we used a digital Johnson...

Now that the new wiring is attached to the compressor, slowly put it back into place on the springs and studs. Do not tighten the compressor down, it is designed to rest and move freely on the four springs it sits on.

I felt no need to recreate the wheel, only to refresh it and upgrade its quality. Therefore, I used a good heavy gauge wire, soldered and looped the ends. The color diagram looking at the back of the compressor from left to right is "green, white, then black".

The next step was a lot more simple than expected. The wire nuts on the back of the compressor came off with ease. The wires were soldered ends looped around the studs, synched down with nuts.

When pulling the compressor out I suggest soaking the locking nuts for a few hours with Liquid Wrench to break them free. We had two bolt studs break on us but that didn't create any issues. We did this with two bodies (four hands) allowing one person to firmly grip the compressor while the...

Next step was to do the daring and dangerous, or costly disaster, of pulling out the compressor roughly 6" to remove the old wiring and replace with new.

Obviously, all the wire coatings are dry rotted and falling apart which poses a fire threat. If you have taken a project this far, replace everything you possibly can with new equipment.