Hi all,

I've just returned from six weeks on the road, from east to west and back,
through frigid (snow in Alberta!) and HOT (105 in northern UT and southern
ID) weather. Overall, my Syncro Westfalia continues to astound me with it's
reliability, quite the opposite from what one would think after reading
these very lists on a regular basis.  About two months ago, I wrote
requesting help from the 'list fridge experts' in an attempt to get better
hot-weather performance from my Dometic fridge. Some good ideas were
offered, however the general consensus was that I should not expect much
more than a 30~35 degree temp differential when operating it on propane. I
was not to prepared to live with that, so here's what transpired since that
time:

First, I pulled the fridge and cleaned the burner, even though it had just
been cleaned a week earlier. All looked good as expected. This is where I
wondered, "why not try MORE flame into the chamber?" I modified the little
burner tube that has several slots, by carefully slicing one additional
flame-slot at either side of the existing ones. Along with this mod, I also
adjusted the regulator pressure upward to 13 W.C. I., from the recommended
11. While the fridge was out, I replaced the wimpy stock cooling fan motor
with one of the $5 Radio Shack high-speed motors, utilizing the original fan
blade. Noisier than stock, but runs less overall and really moves some air!
I retained the stock temperature switch to activate this. Also, in the air
vent at the side of the fridge cabinet, I bolted in a 3-inch computer case
fan, wired to an additional switch, which I activated whenever the cabinet
temps were above 90 degrees. I then put it all back together and reinstalled
the unit in the cabinet, at the same time adding a Radio Shack
indoor-outdoor digital thermometer, placed on the face of the stove panel,
with the inside-temp probe zip-tied to the center fridge rack. Before
installing the fridge door, I added a thin foam weather-strip of 1/8 x 3/8"
around the perimeter of the fridge opening to help seal the door better, as
the old door seal was rather hard. When I finally fired it up, I was
disappointed, the temps didn't drop dramatically, UNTIL I added some food in
the fridge! Strange. The result of all this was that the fridge temps never
went above 45 degrees, this with ambient temps of up to 108 degrees around
the fridge at times. That's a differential of 63 degrees, thank you! In
not-so-crazy temps, the fridge always cooled to between 26 and 40 degrees,
unless the indoor temps rose above 100 for longer than a few hours, so
usually the temp differential was 40 to 50 degrees. I had frozen berries,
frozen tofu, frozen veggie-burgers and the like nestled against the ice-tray
area, which stayed frozen most of the time, and no spoiled food ever! I even
turned the thermostat down a few times when the weather cooled, something I
never needed to do before. The cooling fins at the left side have sustained
a thick layer of frost for the entire six weeks, although that hasn't
affected the cooling, or so it seems. One final note, adding a computer-chip
fan in the fins of the cooling unit actually increases the measured
temperature!

So, there you have it, success. Many thanks to all who offered advice and
spurred me on to the quest for more. I plan to write a bit more about the
trip, the people, and the scenery (not to forget the violation of my civil
rights upon reentering the US from Canada!) in the next few weeks.

Karl Mullendore
Westy Ventures
1987 Syncro Westy 1.9 turbodiesel,
441,000 kilometers and going strong!
(original CV's AND Viscous coupler, all working fine!)
Oh, and the TD conversion now has over 200,000 kilometers on the clock!