Maintenance and care of a 1950's Kelvinator methanol based unit

Hi all.

The husband and I have acquired a vintage fridge to restore (it was free..who can say no?) it is at least 60years old and still working. We have tried looking for information on the inner workings but not a lot seems to be on the net for these things. The refrigerant cylinder is labelled methanol.

As the unit is working is there anything we need do to ensure it continues or are there any precautions we need to take? It's hiding in the garage all switched off and drying out at the moment while we think about how to make it glorious.

The frame has the letters AS747 however. Don't know if that's a standard no. Or the model number.

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UPDATE 4th November 2018

so this is one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” things. It’s slowly rusting, the power plug was majorly corroded when we checked on it way back when, so it’s off indefinitely. We would love to restore this for the man cave/garage.

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5 Commenti:

anyone out there know anything about 40 year old fridges? x

da

Polly - Sorry been mostly away from the site for a while. Are you sure this is a methanol based refrigerator and not a methane fueled unit? Either way it should be an ammonia based unit which is very different from most residential refrigerators. Ammonia based refrigeration is mainly found in campers and in very large commercial applications. Those systems are where it becomes evident that cooling is about taking away heat, and has nothing to do with adding cold.

da

Absorption refrigeration does not use a compressor. I'm willing to bet it's R-12 using mineral oil for lubrication. Where does it say methanol? In the picture you see the power cord and start component box. I did some research and found out that anhydrous methyl alcohol a small amount was used with R-12 and R-22 as an anti freezing compound which leads me to believe they had trouble with moisture in the system. Might not have had good filter/ driers back then or good enough vacuum pumps to fully evacuate the moisture. 1/4 of one drop of water vapor will freeze and plug a cap tube. To tell the refrigerant you need to access the system and get a pressure reading. A P/T chart will tell you what refrigerant corresponds to that pressure at the ambient temperature.

da

If it works don't fix it.

da

I bet it's R-12. Look to see if it says Dichlorodifluoromethane which is R-12 or Chlorodifluoromethane which is R-22.

da

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