Dometic refer problem

[Nick Badame Refrig/ACC]

Dometic or Norcold,

If they were to be left on all the time, they would last forever..??  The cause of falure is mostly rott of the condencer.

Kept warm, they would never rott!

Nick-

[JohnEd]

Well, I have been running the thing till it gets hot and then letting it cool.  Done that 10 times.  New indications are that where the freezer used to get up to 130 degrees in an hour and a half it now only rose to 86 degrees.  No where near a freezer but we are moving in the correct direction.

Tomorrow will get her removed from her hole and heated up and inverted.  Two cycles of that should bring her back if she is coming.  Nick and a local RV shop "expert" are the only ones that think this may work.  I have called maybe 15 other shops and they all said "trash it" and they knew I was not local to them.  Oh well, hope you guys are listening.  My old RV repair guide said that the Dometic would come back almost always.  Anyway, it has been an adventure and a learning experience.  Not to mention the entertainment value to the board in general.

John the hopefull

[bobofthenorth]

Well, I have been running the thing till it gets hot and then letting it cool.  Done that 10 times.  New indications are that where the freezer used to get up to 130 degrees in an hour and a half it now only rose to 86 degrees.  No where near a freezer but we are moving in the correct direction.

That's what I call looking on the bright side.  Another way of putting that would be that you used to have a pretty decent heater and now you have neither a heater nor a fridge.   

[JohnEd]

Bob,

Thanks!

John

[Fred Mc]

I have a 20 y.o. Norcold that wouldn't cool properly. A few weeks ago I posted my problem on this board. Nick suggested that I turn it upside down for a day or so(just what I didn't want to hear). So I removed it and turned it upside down and tapped the coils/boiler with a rubber mallet. I think it now works better than it EVER did. I was reluctant to remove it because my nook was in the way and I had to remove it to remove the fridge. But the upside, besides a better working fridge, was that I replaced the nook with a small table and chairs. Much more room and my wife LOVES it.

Thanks for the advice,Nick, Dr. Dave and others.

And now that Nick has suggested that a refer left running will never rot I'm considering doing that as well. My Norcold has gas/12v/110 v. Perhaps I can leave it running on low on 110 v/

Does that sound feasable?

Fred Mc. GM PD4106

[JohnEd]

Fred,

I had a 1974 mfr. year Dometic in my RV that was working very very well.  Since 1990, when I bought her, she has gone as long as 4 years with the fridg being turned on.  It NEVER failed and in minutes after lighting it off there was frost on the freezer floor.  Over the years I had heard all these tales about them never coming back.  I had even left it run off level for a day by mistake.  It wasn't very cold when I got back but an hour down the road it was doing fine.  I have often heard that the Dometic was the truly durable/strong unit.  I recently read some horror stories about Dometics but thats a new development...for me.

Nick told me today that my assumption that the RV refer was identical to the commercial units was not correct.  Seems that Dometic uses a "wax" as an additional substance to the basic three of Hydrogen, water and ammonia.

I took mine out and am running it with a long hose.  A friend that has been in the RV bus. for 30 years told me to "roll" the refer to move the bubble.  I can only assume that he is speaking from experience.  The most often recommended "fix" I have heard is to lay it on its burner side for 4 hours.  I am working my way up in the fixes from the easiest to the hardest.  So far I have run it in place with the coils blocked and that didn't cure the problem although it modestly changed some of the symptoms.  Today I laid it on it side for 4 hours and had a huge change but still no fix.  It no longer heats the freezer coils but they stay at ambient or a few degrees below.  Tomorrow I will try the side method again only because it is the easiest and Wifey can help.  After that I will get some muscle in here and turn it upside down and abuse it with a mallet.

Thank you for sharing your experience.  Much appreciated.

John