I revived my dead fridge - yahoo!

pianotuna wrote:
Hi,

The anti corrosion material (sodium chromate) precipitates out when it overheats and blocks the tubing. Bob managed to get "lucky" and dislodged the clog.

It may work a day, a month, a year, or forever.

Overheating is more common when the fridge is operated out of level. There is now a cheap device which allows protection from overheating. Have a gander here: http://rvcoolingunit.com/ARP-Refrigerator-Failure-prevention-device-P3736905.aspx

"When a cooling unit malfunctions due to a blockage, the boiler section may be too hot to touch and the absorber will be relatively cool. Any blockage reduces the free flow of the solutions and will inhibit or completely prevent proper cooling operation.

A blockage is caused when the fridge has been operated in an off level condition. The heat that is generated by the propane flame or the electric heating element is the force that initiates the boiling cycle of the ammonia solutions inside the cooling unit. This action is similar to the familiar coffee percolator where the water is lifted by the heat and flows by gravity down over the coffee grounds.

The refrigerator depends on gravity to move the solutions through the system once the heat source has lifted the solutions to the top of the cooling unit. The passages that the solution must travel through have only a slight slope to them and any off-level condition will hinder this gravity flow. Parking on a hill, with your refer running while you go off to lunch, starts the degradation of the system and every time you do this, it adds up. There is no way to reverse this problem.

What happens in this situation, is that the solution in the cooling unit gets overheated, and a component of this solution crystallizes and becomes solid particles that float around and lodge where they're not supposed to.

Tipping the refer upside down, may or may not, dislodge the particles, but they are still in there and will (sooner or later) plug things up again."