Dometic Servel RGE400 fridge too cold
Well it's been almost a year now since I revived my RGE400 fridge for a second time.
As I mentioned in my last post about the fridge when I put it together the control
rods were messed up and I didn't want to spend too much time with them.
I was also missing some end caps etc.
So basically I was operating the temperature control blind.
After getting the fridge to work (electricity only) it was far too cold.
So I removed all the food and laid the fridge down to gain access to the control rods
at the back.
I tried turning the rod once again to a lower setting (blind, once again).
Since then I haven't touched the temp control, but the adjustment didn't make a difference.
The fridge is still way too cold. A lot of the food actually freezes!
I'm open to suggestions.
I think the thermostat is probably malfunctioning.
Is there a way to test it/fix it?
There is something else I thought of.
I recall reading somewhere that the thermostat coil that feeds into the fridge from the fins,
can be adjusted. Pulled inside the fridge more or less.
I remember reading that this can be used to adjust the fridge temperature as well.
Again any guidance would be appreciated.
Thanks for helping out StirCrazy!
I finally fixed the freezing problem. 🙂
More than 10 years ago when I was replacing the original bad thermostat I had problems connecting the
temperature control rod to the thermostat. I gave up on it and just set the temperature blindly to something that seemed to be around 4/10 on the thermostat.
I didn't really care about not being able to adjust the temp with the control rod because in the previous 10+ years I never touched the temp.
When I had my cooling unit in for repairs about a year ago I must have adjusted the thermostat a bit.
Because for the past year I had this freezing problem.
Well a week or so ago after the new thermostat still hadn't solved the problem I decided to have a go again attaching the control rod. I found the plastic piece that was critical to connecting the rod to the thermostat. I did the whole operation with the fridge standing upright, which was quite the challenge!
Once everything was connected properly I set the thermostat to around 2-3.
It seemed to have fixed the problem but I didn't want to celebrate too soon. I waited a week or so before I was confident there was no more freezing. The food was still quite cold so that's why I wasn't sure at first.
So now that everything is working properly again I really don't know if the new thermostat was necessary or not. It's quite possible that had I done the same operation with my existing thermostat it also would have fixed the problem.
I am keeping the old one just in case and am thinking of actually buying another new one as a backup.
I was surprised to be able to buy this new one. But it said it works on many Dometic models so it wasn't my model specifically.
In the 26 years that I have been using my fridge (which I love) I have learned there are only two critical components; the cooling unit and the thermostat.
Do you think I should buy another backup thermostat while I still can?
