Upright fridge/freezer conversion question

[rcook73]

Quick question ...
My wife bought me a fridge to convert into a kegerator (Awesome huh)
after doing some measuring and "eyeballing" ..it was going to be too low if I mounted the the taps on the fridge door......so, me in my infinate wisdom, decided to drill a hole into the freezer compartment and then mount the taps on the freezer door. My Idea was to turn the freezer all the way to the warmest setting, in order to NOT freeze the beer that's left in the line.
Theory NOT thought through well enough ...after drilling the holes, and plugging in the fridge, I put a thermometer in and it's reading around 20 degrees ...I have put a piece of styrofoam over the evaporator in hopes that it will fool the freezer into thinking it's colder than it really is ..will find out tomorrow.
So ..my question is, has anyone ran into a situation like this? If so, what did you do to fix the problem? I've considered unhooking the freezer all together, but then I think I'd have some warm beer in the line (probably better than frozen) ..another option I've thought about is ..removing the freezer, and cutting a large hole into the freezer compartment and letting it get cooled from the fridge.

Ideas PLEASE ..my Faucets are due here on Thursday, so I have a LITTLE bit of time to play

 

[strumke]

How about shutting off the freezer but cutting a hole and putting a CPU fan to keep the top the same temp as the fridge? That way you can also use it for bottle storage.

 

[rcook73]

How about shutting off the freezer but cutting a hole and putting a CPU fan to keep the top the same temp as the fridge? That way you can also use it for bottle storage.

Guessing (since I've already taken a chance on drilling a 1/2 inch hole) that the risk of cutting valuable lines is minimal? ..guess the hole would only need to be 4" X 4 " or so?
that sounds like a GREAT plan though and might have to look into doing that
....now ..how do I unhook the freezer ..is it as easy as a few bolts and unhooking some "quick release" clips

 

[dutchoven]

Wait, I'm a little confused. What type of fridge are you working on? Full size fridge or mini-fridge? Pics?

If you're working on a full size fridge, I would imagine taps on the freezer door would be fairly high. On a freezer top model, you cannot "disconnect" the freezer -- the freezer cools the fridge.

If you cut a hole in to the freezer, the fridge would have no way of cooling the freezer as cold air falls and would settle in the lowest part of the unit.

My kegerator is a full size fridge, freezer on top. My taps are mounted on the side, just below the roof of the fridge compartment (shanks centered 42 inches from the floor).

 

[rcook73]

Wait, I'm a little confused. What type of fridge are you working on? Full size fridge or mini-fridge? Pics?

If you're working on a full size fridge, I would imagine taps on the freezer door would be fairly high. On a freezer top model, you cannot "disconnect" the freezer -- the freezer cools the fridge.

If you cut a hole in to the freezer, the fridge would have no way of cooling the freezer as cold air falls and would settle in the lowest part of the unit.

My kegerator is a full size fridge, freezer on top. My taps are mounted on the side, just below the roof of the fridge compartment (shanks centered 42 inches from the floor).

It's an "appartment size" ..stands about 5 feet tall ..I could ALMOST put a tower and have the taps on top (if I wasn't a shorty).

My wife has seemed to get it under control while I was at work today ..the temp in the freezer is hanging out around 35 or so ...she says she can get it up to around 40 ..that'd be about perfect ...after it's done I'll post pic's