Dometic fridge not cooling on gas
We have a 2003 Pleasureway class B van. It has a Dometic RM2353 fridge. It is the manual 3-way version with the piezo igniter. We recently took a trip to the keys and had problems keeping the fridge cold. Back home I unloaded the fridge, plugged in the van and turned the fridge on AC and set the thermostat to 6, that being two settings down from MAX. The next morning I found the refer section thermometer said 24 degrees and the freezer thermometer said 20 below 0. I shut the fridge off and left the door open for a couple of hours with the weather here in the mid 80s. The refer side was reading about 75 and the freezer was at 28 above. I turned the fridge to gas and lit it. After several hrs the refer side was only down to 44 and the freezer was at 24 above 0. The last two times I checked it during about a two hour span those temps were not changing. Here is the part that is strange to me and I'm sure it may mean something to you fellas that know about these units.
This is a small 3 cu ft fridge and both of the ventilation vents are on the side of the RV. I installed a baffle to reduce the clearance between the cooling fins and the side wall from 3 1/2 inches down to 1/2 inch. The RV was level. The gas supply is good. The thing that baffles me is when the fridge was on AC and cooling good I could feel a gentle breeze of warm air coming from the top ventilation grate. When I ran it on gas that warm breeze got much, much warmer to the point that my wife found the plastic ventilation grate too hot to hold her hand on. It was only slightly warm on AC. It seems the gas is running too much flame, it is a nice clean blue flame, and it never reduces in size as the flue temps go up. The flue is clear. The tin baffle at the top of the flue tube gets up around 400 degrees.
I'm thinking there must be some sort of sensor/flow valve system to regulate the temperature of the gas boiler by regulating the gas to the burner. Can someone explain whats going on here? Can the boiler run two hot? What regulates the boiler temp when on gas? Is the culprit a part I can purchase. This fridge is 13 years old, is that too old to bring back to usefulness? Would you fix this or cough up a Grand for a new one?
This is a small 3 cu ft fridge and both of the ventilation vents are on the side of the RV. I installed a baffle to reduce the clearance between the cooling fins and the side wall from 3 1/2 inches down to 1/2 inch. The RV was level. The gas supply is good. The thing that baffles me is when the fridge was on AC and cooling good I could feel a gentle breeze of warm air coming from the top ventilation grate. When I ran it on gas that warm breeze got much, much warmer to the point that my wife found the plastic ventilation grate too hot to hold her hand on. It was only slightly warm on AC. It seems the gas is running too much flame, it is a nice clean blue flame, and it never reduces in size as the flue temps go up. The flue is clear. The tin baffle at the top of the flue tube gets up around 400 degrees.
I'm thinking there must be some sort of sensor/flow valve system to regulate the temperature of the gas boiler by regulating the gas to the burner. Can someone explain whats going on here? Can the boiler run two hot? What regulates the boiler temp when on gas? Is the culprit a part I can purchase. This fridge is 13 years old, is that too old to bring back to usefulness? Would you fix this or cough up a Grand for a new one?
