Fridge not working help please

If it hasn't been working for a long time then it need professional service. Not something a novice should be tinkering with. Too much can go bad too soon. Find an rv service to give it a good tune up and cleaning. It takes specific tools to do properly.

Take the outside cover off and look around. If you see a yellowish stain on the coils, it is basically toast. Your choices are an Amish cooling unit and hope the rest is OK, or scrap it and install a new refer. Personally at that age I would opt for a new refer

At that age, I would have it tested and if not just a control board, I would remove it and replace with a small residential type fridge. A new absorption fridge would be way to expensive unless the camper is a real gem IMHO.

robsouth wrote:
At that age, I would have it tested and if not just a control board, I would remove it and replace with a small residential type fridge. A new absorption fridge would be way to expensive unless the camper is a real gem IMHO.

If it really IS toast this is what I was planning to do. However curiosity has me wondering if it is EASILY fixable. Hence the question.

I would examine and smell-test the cooling unit thoroughly inside the box and out as has been suggested. Carefully look over the electrical for any problems. Then one way to quickly check an RV reefer is to hot-wire the AC heating element. Inspect the element carefully and check to make sure that it has the proper resistance (research on-line to find the proper # of ohms that it should measure) Connect the leads of the element directly to an extension cord and plug it in to AC. Give it about 12 hours. The element should get warm and the reefer should start to cool. If the element gets warm but you have no cooling then the cooling unit is probably bad. Before you junk it you might want to make sure your RV has the elecrical capacity in place to power a residential model for whatever type of camping you do. Replacement cooling units aren't difficult to install and they aren't that expensive. Good luck with your investigation.

Miles

Need good 12V DC power.

Propane available and valved in....purge lines by lighting stove top burners

Turn fridge ON.
Check that gas lites
Wait onvernight and check for cooling


OR if you have 110V AC power available
Plug in
Still need good 12V DC for controls
Turn fridge ON
Select electric (place in 'auto' or select electric.depends on your model of fridge)
Check electric working......feel area around electric element getting warm
Wait overnight and check for cooling

In other words...........try turning it on and see what happens or doesn't happen

Post model and any problems you run into.