Any Fridgerant Experts Out There?

I screwed up...OK, I admit it...now I need help.

I have a VERY old Kelvinator fridge with a freezer. I checked it visually around the freezer section and realized that I could drill through the rivets and release the freezer portion from the fridge and remove it entirely leaving behind these two "tanks" which cool the fridge....

Nah, it's not that easy...the lines (are they freon filled or is the cold generated when I plug the sucker back in??) are attached to the aluminum freezer compartment. Now I have a freezer section hanging freely. Because the bolt heads that holds it onto the ceiling of the fridge broke off.

I crushed a couple of inches of the lines thinking I could cut, bend and and solder them shut. Then I realized it's a closed loop system. OH SHIITE!!!

I checked behind the fridge and the large tank that I assume holds freon has what looks like an intake hose that is also crushed and soldered. I'm guessing it can't be refilled.

Anyone have any ideas as to what I can do now to keep the fridge operational? I'd like to use it for lagering.

Did you cut or break any lines in the process? If you did, you would have known it.

How bad are the lines crushed?

you would have been best off to leave the freezer attatched. Most of them have the evaporator in the freezer and let cool air into the refrig. box.

Post a pic of what you got and it'll help.
If you blew the charge out of the thing, it can be refilled but you need to know someone inthe refrigeration business. Special tools needed. It wouldnt be worth it to pay someone to fix it either, be better off buying a new one for what they would charge you.

And yep, they are closed loop systems sealed tightly with no air/moisture in them.

The two "tanks" youre talking about. Can you post a pic, one should be the compresser.

In order to repair the length of refrigerant line that you crushed, a licensed refrigeration tech must recover the refrigerant down to 15" Hg of vacuum, break the vacuum with nitrogen, cut out the damaged section of tubing, braze in a new length of tubing, pressurize with nitrogen to leak check, purge nitrogen and evacuate the system with a vacuum pump into a deep vacuum and weigh in the critical charge of refrigerant that is stamped on the nameplate of the unit.

So you can see, unfortunately this would more than likely exceed the cost of a new fridge.

Time to buy a new fridge, if you modify any of the refrigerent lines it's almost impossible to know exactly how much freon to charge the system with, and for that matter how much refrigeration oil escaped?

Yeah, I thought of that too.

Thanks for all the tips.

Can we close this thread...maybe even delete it?

Don't close or delete this yet.
See if there's a vocational school or HVAC/refrigeration program at community college in your area. For some homebrew, and instructor will make the repair into a class project.
I had a dorm fridge I got for free when I was in summer school, way back in college. When I later realized that she gave it to me because she popped a hole into the aluminum freezer with an icepick (chiseling off the frost), I wasn't sure if it was salvageable. I took it over to a buddy's house, and we looked at it. Then he called his dad down. A few weeks later, it was running great -- free of charge to me. His dad had brought it to a vocational school and they repaired it -- I tell you what, it ran awesome and never needed recharging or anything, from about 1989 until about 2004 (wife gave it away, I was pretty pissed when I found out - it was one of the "big" dorm fridges, and would be perfect as a backup to my 4912.
Food for thought, might be too much effort, but might be worthwhile.

yea, if you lived by me id fix it for you for cost of materials. Im a liscensed reefer tech!

Buy a chest freezer and convert it, just dont F*@# with the copper lines bro!

Your close to the work that'd be done johnsma. Refrigerators arent usually fixing if it has anything to do with the freon system. We never fix them at work, recover the gas, throw em out and buy a new one.

Tophe96 said:

yea, if you lived by me id fix it for you for cost of materials. Im a liscensed reefer tech!

Buy a chest freezer and convert it, just dont F*@# with the copper lines bro!

Your close to the work that'd be done johnsma. Refrigerators arent usually fixing if it has anything to do with the freon system. We never fix them at work, recover the gas, throw em out and buy a new one.

Click to expand...

So what number refrigerant do they use?

I have a license for r12 but I'm not even sure that is what it would need. I'm betting r134a is a no-no though, right?

OK guys thanks for all the tips, but this is a dinosaur fridge. At least 30 years old...read "not worth saving".

I'll get another one later on, trust me.

His is probably R12 if its that old. 134a is in autos. I think most residential fridges are R22, maybe going to 410a now. Thats one of the new env. friendly refrigerants.

BTW...if it is R12...than it really is not worth fixing that stuff is over $100/lb .

Just for every ones edification, freon is just a brand name for refrigerants manufactured by DuPont. Other manufacturers use different trade names, for example, Honeywell's brand name is Genetron. R-134 is the replacement for R-12 and is used extensively in refrigerators.

One of the reasons it is usually not practical to have someone perform repairs to the refrigerant circuit on refrigerators, de-humidifiers, window a/c units, etc.. is due to the fact that the manufacturers of these units do not install access fittings to get to the refrigerant. The tech has to first install a temporary piercing valve onto a line and recover the refrigerant, then cut in a braze in fittings before they can do anything else. The time it takes to do just this can go beyond the value of the unit.

I too am a refrigeration tech. I work for York International, but I haven't worked on anything smaller than a 400 chiller since I was an apprentice. Here is a photo of a 500 ton Carrier centrifugal chiller at NorthEastern University in Boston that we retro-fitted with a York driveline, control panel and yes, that thing that I am leaning against is a motor speed controller for 450 hp electric motor that drives the compressor.

OK, the fridge is at least 40 years old.

As far as I'm concerned I placed a DO NOT RESUSITATE sticker on the sucker.

Thanks for the asistance.

Nice chiller John! I work for Pfizer and we have numerous brine and syltherm chiller skids on site. I have a couple of 100 ton FES units I take care of. The chilled water guys have quite a few centrifugal chillers. Not sure what size they are, but are similar to the units in your pic. I think all of theirs are trane units.

Ever work on any Pfizer sites? I think we have a few york units on site. I know we have some Fricks also. Aren't York and Frick one in the same now?

Now that the hijack is complete... I personally haven't worked at any Pfizer sites but I know some of the guys I work with have done some warranty work for Pfizer. York used to buy all their screw compressors from Frick. York liked them so much, they bought them out! York likes to do that. If there is a vendor that makes equipment that works well with our equipment, rather than re-inventing the wheel, they just buy them. That is until last year when Johnson Controls bought York!

I work on a lot of centrifugal's, but I carved out a little niche for myself with lithium bromide steam absorption chillers. Water is used as the refrigerant. In a deep enough vacuum, water boils at 40˚F. The lithium bromide is a salt solution that carries the water around the machine. Steam distills the water out of the salt solution to complete the cycle. Only three moving parts, a refrigerant pump, a solution pump and a steam control valve. Very cool! At least to me, but I'm a geek! The thing that is great is that they are a mystery to most people, especially the customers. Steam in, cold water out? That very fact means security for me!



Here are a few photos of an absorber that I was doing the startup on for a dorm at Northeastern University. The last shot is of the million dollar view of Boston from the penthouse mechanical room. Take a guess where I set up my office on campus!

That sounds pretty cool, and pretty specialized. Ive never heard of one of those. I work on mostly screws and reciprocating compressors.

I'll be finishing up my apprenticship in about a month. I got into an apprenticship right out of high school. I wouldnt mind getting out of Pfizer down the road and work for one of the big companies. It'd be cool to get out and see other stuff besides the same old equipment everyday, but the pay and bene's are pretty good there so it'd be hard to leave.

Cool to know theres another HVAC guy on the forum!