Refrigerator options

[Brandonitis]

Alright, so I just had a complete systems check done on my '78 Chevy Itasca and the results were overall what I expected. Motor, tranny, brakes, all mechanical is great. Body, furnace, AC, water lines, LP system, hot water tank and fresh water tank are all good too.
Bad news is the refrigerator is in-op, as is the fresh water pump. Fresh water pump is not a problem as I'm pretty sure I can repair it or easily replace it since it's easily accessible.
The refer is another story, I know for a new one I'm looking at around a grand, maybe $600-$800 on a refurbished one. Another idea I'm kicking around is a dorm fridge or a 12v plug in self-cooling cooler.
Anyone have any experience with the latter options?
My budget is not new refer friendly.
Thanks!

[kgragert]

I don't know how large a refrigerator you need.
But Lowe's has a 4.5 cf compact fridge from Frigidaire, that only draws .88 amps while running and 1.01 amps on start up.
$200

It is almost the same size as the current fridge in my Toy RV.

That should be within range of a couple of good batteries. It wouldn't be running 24 hours steady, just on and off to maintain the temperature.
You could even turn it off at night and still maintain the cold.
A solar panel, running the generator, or RV a few hours a day, should keep the batteries charged.

An Ideal situation would be the solar panels.

[Bordercollie]

If you replace your old fresh water pump with a much higher GPM capacity unit, you may need to increase wire guage for increased current or install an Intellitec device. There are a number of old threads on pump replacement and You Tube videos.

[Brandonitis]

My plan for now is a cooler with ice, I want to remove the non working refer and make use of the space for the time being, and for that I was thinking dry food storage and a spot to bolt down a small floor safe possibly. That's one thing this beast lacks is storage, and as long as there is space available I may use it.
Also need a fresh water pump replaced for the storage tank. I was looking at the Shurflo Revolution or the Flojet Quiet Quad 2 for starters, anyone have any input there?

[Bordercollie]

If you like your rig and everything else is working, why not bite the bullet and have the old fridge replaced. If you are can't afford the price, try putting dry ice in the freezing compartment for a while and/or carry an ice chest until you can afford a replacement fridge.

Our fridge died after about 10 years of service. We had a mobile RV service guy replace ours. Don't try replacing fridge yourself, it requires taking the RV door off and a couple of guys to wrestle it into place.

[Blue_Hill]

Check out this series of videos on YouTube. They are very informative and show how a lot of DOA rv fridges can be repaired .

Clicky

[ronfisherman]

Brandonitis wrote:


I haven't picked up the RV yet from the place I had it diagnosed, so I'm not sure what all they tried to determine that it wasn't working, I'll try and figure it out myself.
I'll definitely check out trying to have it rebuilt, but so far what I've heard is that a 37 year old refer has difficult to find parts...unless he's telling me that as a salesman. I have checked Craigslist and found a few parts, and a few used refers although they were too big for my unit.
If worse comes to worse, I'll go with cooler and ice, or look into building one potentially.
Our trip is planned for 6 months, and I need to rebuild a few drawers and re-do some upholstery throughout, if I still have budget room after that I'll weigh my options.

I'll get the RV back on Saturday and hopefully run some diagnostics on Sunday, and repost my findings.
Thanks for all the help everyone!

Give Leon a call at National RV Refrigeration. He will give you the straight info on whats repairable.

[Brandonitis]

Son of Norway wrote:
Opinions on these forums tend to be weighted towards replacing RV absorption refrigerators with residential AC units. But if you plan on doing a lot of dry camping, I would not recommend it unless you have a large battery bank or even a solar set-up.

The absorption refrigerators can run on gas for days with very little power, that's why they are in RV's. If yours doesn't work, figure out why. It might just be the circuit board. If it's the cooling unit, you can buy a new or rebuilt one without having to buy a new fridge. I changed the cooling unit out on my fridge for a little over $300.

Miles

I haven't picked up the RV yet from the place I had it diagnosed, so I'm not sure what all they tried to determine that it wasn't working, I'll try and figure it out myself.
I'll definitely check out trying to have it rebuilt, but so far what I've heard is that a 37 year old refer has difficult to find parts...unless he's telling me that as a salesman. I have checked Craigslist and found a few parts, and a few used refers although they were too big for my unit.
If worse comes to worse, I'll go with cooler and ice, or look into building one potentially.
Our trip is planned for 6 months, and I need to rebuild a few drawers and re-do some upholstery throughout, if I still have budget room after that I'll weigh my options.

I'll get the RV back on Saturday and hopefully run some diagnostics on Sunday, and repost my findings.
Thanks for all the help everyone!

[DaHose]

If you are close to National, that would be a good way to go. In my case, I replaced the dead board for $180 with a DinoBoard, only to discover the evaporator was out too. I wish I had better understood how they work. You can test function by applying 12V directly to the heater element. If the ammonia boils but the fridge won't cool at all, it is for sure the evaporator.

Now that I think about it, I will search for a post about testing your RV fridge. If I can't find one, I will make one.

As to your other question. The self cooling coolers use a peltier style element. Poke around youtube and you can find DIY builds running at around 5 amps. If that is typical and you have a 250AH battery, it could be a viable option. You could actually run it off solar most of the time. Maybe a couple of coolers and small solar setup is the best option for you.

Jose

[ronfisherman]

I would consider a repair. I got mine rebuilt in Shipsewana, IN. last spring. About $600 and done in less than 2 hours. Check out National RV Refrigeration . They sell rebuilds and some new RV fridges.

[KristinU]

pauldub wrote:
Maybe you want to look for a used RV fridge on Craigslist.

I would try this first.

A few years ago, we installed a fridge in our pop-up that didn't have one. I found a guy on Craigslist that was selling off any useable parts from his old pop-up that had been damaged and he was turning it into a utility trailer. Less likely scenario in the C world, but maybe you'll get lucky. Or Google RV salvage fridge, there should be some resources out there.

[Son_of_Norway]

Opinions on these forums tend to be weighted towards replacing RV absorption refrigerators with residential AC units. But if you plan on doing a lot of dry camping, I would not recommend it unless you have a large battery bank or even a solar set-up.

The absorption refrigerators can run on gas for days with very little power, that's why they are in RV's. If yours doesn't work, figure out why. It might just be the circuit board. If it's the cooling unit, you can buy a new or rebuilt one without having to buy a new fridge. I changed the cooling unit out on my fridge for a little over $300.

Miles

[pauldub]

Maybe you want to look for a used RV fridge on Craigslist.

[Brandonitis]

Merrykalia wrote:
In our last TT, we replaced a broken Dometic 6 cu ft fridge with an Avanti 7.4 cu ft apartment size fridge. We purchased it online for a little over $300 and had it shipped to us in 3 days. It was about 6" taller than the Dometic, so we took out the trim piece off the top, cut 6" off, then installed the fridge and put the trim back on. We had to rig up a closer to make sure it didn't open while going down the road, but we drilled a hole in the plastic and put in a small dowel rod which was on a short chain.

We never had a problem with it getting warm or thawing things in the 4 years we had it in the TT and we did several trips of 7-8 hour travel time. We also don't boondock, we always have some type of hookups.

This is where we purchased it. Avanti 7.4

The lack of hookups will be our problem, we plan on "dry camping" a whole lot so we need a 12v supply, and don't have a to of room for a big battery bank.
I'm looking to purchase a Lifeline AGM battery, probably group 27 if it fits, which it should, that battery should buy us about 4 days without hookups??

[Merrykalia]

In our last TT, we replaced a broken Dometic 6 cu ft fridge with an Avanti 7.4 cu ft apartment size fridge. We purchased it online for a little over $300 and had it shipped to us in 3 days. It was about 6" taller than the Dometic, so we took out the trim piece off the top, cut 6" off, then installed the fridge and put the trim back on. We had to rig up a closer to make sure it didn't open while going down the road, but we drilled a hole in the plastic and put in a small dowel rod which was on a short chain.

We never had a problem with it getting warm or thawing things in the 4 years we had it in the TT and we did several trips of 7-8 hour travel time. We also don't boondock, we always have some type of hookups.

This is where we purchased it. Avanti 7.4