Vintage Kegerator

I just realized I never posted pics of my kegerator! It started life out as a 1940-41 Kelvinator refrigerator. Apparently it was used up to the 1970's in a home bar to dispense from golden gate tap type kegs and had one faucet on the front. When I got it off Craigslist for free it hadn't been run in at least 35 years.The owner said it was his fathers and had been in the basement since he died in the 70's. The electric wires were so brittle and decayed he was afraid to plug it in to see if it worked. When I got home I took a chance and plugged it in and it hummed right along! It had a horrid paint job done with house paint and a paint brush so I stripped it all and repainted it with an industrial tractor paint that is very hard. It is painted SWMBO's favorite color(orange) to at least appease her since she has to look at it every day and wasn't too keen on it being in the house. When it was repainted it was stripped down, the old cardboard insulation removed and new foam insulation installed to make it more efficient. As well as all the wiring removed as well as the original thermostat removed and replaced with the Ranco. I welded up the regulator bracket which also holds the ranco and bolted it to the side of the fridge. Unfortunately the cooling system developed a super tiny pin hole and slowly leaked coolant over the course of a year until it finally stopped cooling all together. So this is version 2.0, I gutted an old mini fridge and installed its whole cooling system in this fridge and now its back in business!
Also in case anyone is wondering the handle below the fridge section opens a drawer which is great to store brew items.





Also each regulator has a external pressure release under them, if you have to change pressure or vent a keg it can all be done from the outside. All the Co2 lines run behind the bracket to the back of the fridge and cant be seen.

Super awesome! I love it :rockin:

That is beautiful - well done!

Thanks! I wish I had a better camera than the cell phone, the pics really doesn't do it justice.

That looks great man! All the more inspiration for my build!

Very nice unit.

awesome I love the old fridge. One of the coolest kegerators I have seen. Nice restore.

Cool factor is 10 out of 10!

I just finished my second kegerator build moving up from 4 to 8 taps. I'd love to do a project like this next -- I'll have to hide it in the cellar to keep from getting tossed out of the house though. Great work! Did you make the tap handles?

No, the tap handles were old 50's rheingold tap handles. I took the label out and painted the back with chalkboard paint then put it back together. I had to find each separate on eBay over the course of a couple months. They ended up each being around $15 shipped, which is much cheaper than the commercial made chalkboard handles. Plus they keep with the vintage theme.

:rockin::rockin::rockin:

Hey JRems, love your kegerator. I'm just now working on mine, a 1954 Frigidaire (made a lot of progress on my first day), and I think i'm going to have to leave the tank outside, too. What did you do for the holes where your gas lines go into the fridge--flanges or something?
Thanks!
(If you want to see my verbose progress, my thread is here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/vintage-1954-frigidaire-kegerator-build-334079/
)

I just used a rubber grommet in a hole and ran the tubing through.

JRems said:

No, the tap handles were old 50's rheingold tap handles. I took the label out and painted the back with chalkboard paint then put it back together. I had to find each separate on eBay over the course of a couple months. They ended up each being around $15 shipped, which is much cheaper than the commercial made chalkboard handles. Plus they keep with the vintage theme.

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I need to find these for my vintage fridge

This is awesome, I want to restore the one in our basement and am trying to figure out a new cooling system. Would you recommend gutting an old mini fridge? Is it still working pretty well?