It's now academic, because a replacement has been delivered today, but I'm just curious what the cause might have been...
On Friday, our old, upright basic freezer, fitted with an after market temperature alarm, began bleeping due to the temperature rising. Compressor/motor was buzzing slightly, but also hot. I turned it off, applied a damp cloth to the compressor, to cool it, whilst in the meantime checking the 5uF start capacitor. It measured 3.3uF, but still within spec.. I reassembled, gave the compress a clout, powered it up and away it went. Once it achieved it's set temperature and stopped, it again would not restart. It was so old, I was unable to source a replacement start relay, though I wasn't convinced the start relay was faulty.
I ordered another freezer on Saturday, delivered lunch time, but in the meantime, over the weekend, I managed to keep it limping along..
I discovered that if the compressor were allowed to cool down, then it would manage to start, if I pressed the manual fast free button, the compressor would just run continuously for ever more, in fact it would happily pull the temperature down to minus 32C. I then added a time-clock, so it would be on two hours, off two hours and so on, for the entire 24 hours - enabling the compressor to cool down, between runs.
Anyone any idea, what the problem might have been - just to satisfy my curiosity, please?