

| Subject: | Fridge Tune-up. |
| From: | Dan Houg |
| Date: | Mon, 26 Jun 1995 11:09:05 CST6CDT |
Since the Westy-ectomy, I've had time/access to do those pesky things one wishes they could do... I tuned up my fridge! Here's what I did, and thanks to Derek Drew's fridge article for some of these ideas: 1. disassembled the burner assembly. this is very easy and i found a few significant things. first off, the drain tube was completely blocked with cement like crud. that tube with the threaded plug in the front of your fridge drains the condensation from the burner chamber. if you can't easily blow into that tube, your tube is cruded up! secondly, i cleaned the gas jet and resisted the temptation to run a wire or welding torch tip cleaner thru it. i just used carb cleaner and compressed air. i cleaned the glass window for flame viewing and also cleaned and polished the ends of the lucite rod that conducts the flame light from the glass window to that hole in the corner of the fridge. i blew out quite a bit of ash/rust from the burner tube heat exchanger. 2. i took apart the air pump. i cleaned it and greased the rubber seal with a silicone grease made for rubber. the addition of the grease yielded quite a bit more of an air 'puff' when the plunger is operated. 3. dusted the condensor air fins and lubricated the fan. by the way, the fridge fan draws about 350 ma current as measured with a somewhat higher quality analog meter. i think i will add another muffin fan to the rectangular grid on the left side of the fridge cabinet to help exhaust the heat from the back of the cabinet. that cheap little fan on the condensor seemed to move quite a bit of air so i'll leave that be. the lubrication quieted it down a bit. 4. i ran a 7.0 X 1.0 mm tap into the drain tube hole to clean up the threads as mine was nearly impossible to thread that cap into. lubed the threads with graphite and it goes in 'so nize' now. 5. relocated my interior fridge fan wires out thru the top by the evaporator. yes, i will have *3* fans on my fridge when i'm done! 6. tightened the piezo sparker as the big nut holding it in postion was loose. it 'snaps' better now. So that was my anal-retentive afternoon to fix something that still worked. -dan
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