refrigerator freezer troubles

I'd go with a replacement relay on the compressor. I've had good results with a Supco universal hard start.

Most of the time, this bring a compressor back to life. You want the one that says 1/4 to 1/3 HP.

CY: Who can tell? Might need a simple part.

CY: Two fans in the fridge. Neither should have any signifigant bit of oil. They both use bronze bearings.

CY:Very often, dust will cause a no cooling problem.

CY: Condenser is a set of tubes and fins. Compressor has wires and can be checked for ohms.

CY: That's about right.

CY:Which is good.

CY: No sound at all suggests either bad compressor, or bad relay.

CY: Hot compressor but not running sounds a lot like bad start relay. BTW, condenser should never get cold, as it's the part that gets hot to release heat. Evap should never get warm, as it's the part that gets cold to absorb heat.

CY: Might not be needed.

CY: From what you write, this is probably the part you need.

CY: He just wrote a list of symptoms and tests which all point to bad start relay. I'd call that basis.

CY: I suspect the replacement relay or a Supco will do the job. If it does not, then the compressor is bad. But I don't suspect that at the moment.

CY: You have near to zero chance to buy a condenser for this refrigerator. And if you did, it would be too expensive to install. Same with the capillary tube.

CY: Please let us know how the job goes.

I guess the repairman for a fee can give a qualified opinion as to the extent of the problems. But even he can't tell you what happens a couple more years from now, after you sink hundreds into an old fridge. All I'm saying is that with a 13 year old basic fridge when it stops cooling like this, the probability that replacing it is going to be the best solution is a lot higher than if it's just 4 years old.

Yeah, I was wondering about that too. Relay in the condenser?

My bad, I mixed them up, but you get the obvious point, which is to see if the compressor is running at all.

It's not even clear to me what he measured as the description isn't clear. But if he wants to go buy more parts, he can certainly do so.

What's a supco?

Crap shoot at best. It will cost $80 to $120 to walk through the door to tell you that you have to spend yet another $100 or more or that it is junk. At 13 years, unless it is a premium unit, I'd go for new.

Few months back I paid $80 to have a repair man tell me it would cost $400 to fix the washing machine. Wasted money at that point because it was not worth fixing.

Spending another $13 into a DIY attempt may be a good idea. But before I did that, I think he should go back and reinvestigate where that oil was that he says came from the small condensor fan motor. We agree that small motors like that don't have oil in them, so where did it come from? I'm wondering if it actually came from a hole in refrigerant system and it's leaking compressor oil. If so, it's game over.

Kill A Watt P3. I'd read about it when I saw it on sale at newegg. I haven't regretted it.

Besides watts, it keeps track of time and hours; so I can see the average wattage of a refrigerator, and what it will use in a month.

It shows me vampire loads; some gear is a lot more efficient than other gear. For charging a car battery, I find it a better monitor than the charger's ammeter.

Oops... It shows time and kilowatt hours! I was out sick the day my class studied English!

I have a Kill a Watt too and also highly recommend it. It's great for monitoring any plug in loads where you want to find out how much power they actually use over a period of time. From the menu you can put in your cost of power and it will then tell you how much a day, week, month, etc it costs to run.

I was looking to see if it might be your condenser... that is, the start capacitor for the motor. A lot of refrigerators don't have start capacitors, which would rule that out!

I found this:

Common sense, but I was too dumb to see it! If you've got 10 ohms and 9 ohms, the third reading should be 19 ohms. I believe you have a short in the motor. That would account for the stink episode.

I just discovered that P3 includes more than one model. I got the cheapest, the 4400. No menu. Buttons for volts, amps, volt-amps, watts, Hz, Pf, kwh, and hours.

Amazon has 159 results for "kill a watt."

That procedure makes sense and if he's really measuring at the compressor, then I agree with your conclusion based on the procedure. But IDK what he was measuring because he said he removed the relay from the "condenser" then measured 3 pins. It's not clear what the pins were. I guess by condenser he means the start cap, but not a good choice of words when the fridge has an AC condenser.

Regarding the smell, if something burned, it would have to be something besides the compressor motor, because that is sealed with no way for the smell to escape. And it should have protection so that even with a bad compressor, external parts shouldn't burn, but also could be more than one thing is kaput.

I think you're right, 4400 model doesn't have the ability to enter cost of electricity and have it display cost per month, etc. But my choice of the term "menu" was misleading too. My unit looks very similar to yours. There isn't a menu really, you just use the buttons to cycle through the list of choices and in one place you can enter the cost per kwh.

From this thread, I understand that the oil on the fan must have come from the compressor. It must not be sealed.

How about this? The system develops a leak down low, where pressure from the refrigerant forces oil out. Maybe the rotor locks from lack of oil, or maybe the rotor will still turn but a winding burns because there isn't enough oil to dissipate heat. The stink exits through the leak. I don't know what goes on inside a refrigerator compressor, but I can imagine!

One immediate question that maybe someone here knows the answer to or that could be answered via a wiring diagram is if there is a low pressure cut-off switch on the compressor? If there is, then if it's leaked that bad, then the compressor should not be receiving power, but it obviously is. But IDK if these small compressors have that.

For me the oil and the smell are key and if anything more with regard to tracking them back can be done, I think it could resolve it. Your scenario would account for both. Or are the start caps filled with oil?

You sent 273 lines of usenet with three word question?

I've never seen a low cut out on a refrigerator.

Thank you!

Thank you!

Hi Trader_4,

Bronze bearings like that are porous and soaked in machine oil like a sponge. When the friction of the rotating shaft heats up the bearing, the oil expands out of the bearing on to the shaft. It is called a "self lubricating bearing". So yes, there is oil in them. I personally prefer double ball bearing fans.

And, both the repairman I like and the part house I got the replacement told me that burning tire stink and oil on the case of the fan are the first symptoms of a failing fan.

When sleeve bearing fans use up all the oil where the shaft rotates, the heat generated causes the oil on the outside of the bearing to sweat all over the place. And it stinks like hell too.

This is the fan:

By the way, there is about five times the air flow with the new motor.

-T