Add wood extension to stand up fridge for lines

Hi all,
I am beginning to install 2 taps in my kitchen. I have an old stand up freezer which I am converting to a fridge for cooling the corney kegs. There will not be room for the CO2 in the freezer, so I will need to run the CO2 line through the fridge. Additionally, I am piping the beer from the basement straight up into the kitchen ( about 8' run). I am going to use the concept often discussed here, where the beer lines run within a smaller diameter PVC pipe and have a fan blowing cold air through, and a larger diameter pipe around this for return air. I figure I will use about a 3" diameter PVC pipe for the return air, so I also need a 3" diameter hole in the fridge. I want to try to avoid cutting through the fridge, and was thinking I could use a similar idea to what people are doing with freezer chests. I would make a 2x6 wood frame to match the size of the freezer door. I would fasten this to the freezer, and the door would get reattached so that it closes on the wood frame. I could then run all my lines through the wood. My concern is the seal between the door and the wood frame. Do you think this will be an issue? The door actually has a locking latch on it, that I think I could put a new hook on the wood frame so that when it is latched it pulls the door tight. Any comments are appreciated, thanks.

Has anyone ever seen or tried anything like this?

Thanks.

A vertical collar? Sounds cool!
I have no idea how you would fasten such a thing to the fridge, but I would imagine you can screw the door hinges to the collar after that.
The doors seal magnetically, so you'd either have to wrap the collar in steel flashing, or find some way to clamp the door shut.

I don't see any reason this shouldn't work, but I can think of a few easier ways to get lines out of the fridge!

in the show us ur keggerator thread, about 3-4 pages from the end you see one done like this on a mini upright.

I did not realize that the door was held closed magnetically. I think the locking latch will come in handy in that case. I am going to give it a shot, I will post pictures when it is complete.

Buzzkill, cant seem to find the keezer you are talking about, but I will keep looking.

I put some sheet metal on the front lip of mine. The link to my Mini fridge with front collar is in my signature.

Thanks for the link. It is looking good. Does the sheet metal have good holding power to keep the door shut? I will get started on mine this weekend.

Sorry for the delayed response...
It actually holds really well. I think it was from a roll of flashing I picked up from lowes.

I will need to get some. I built the frame, and currently have a latch holding the door shut, but I think adding the flashing is warranted to get a better seal all around.