Old Norcold Fridge - Died Suddenly

dougrainer wrote:
GOOD question. I think there are 6 wires to the switch. Maybe 5. I no longer have a schematic for that 30 year old refer. GOOD news is, you can connect all together as all it does is jump power to the board and the Hi humidity Heater strip. Find the HOT 12 volt wire. Then take each of the other wires one at a time and connect to the 12 volt wire. When you find the one that activates the eyebrow panel jut jump those 2 together. I would not worry bout trying to activate the Hi Humidity heat strip. Doug

Completely agree about the humidity strip. That's an unnecessary luxury... especially for a family that does so much boondocking. We like to go as many days without a noisy generator as we can and every amp counts. Would rather leave that switch alone than I would forget to reset it.

That said, if I ever get the bulb socket fixed, I definitely would want to switch the light off when we store the rig with the fridge doors open.

Speaking of light socket...

Yes. 5 wires to the switch. Looking from the front of the switch, the center right tab is unused.

Unfortunately, when I took the whole metal panel away from the fridge, 2 wires popped off, though I'm fairly certain I saw which where which beforehand. When viewed from the front, the came from the left center and top left tabs. I think the left center was the (+) lead and the top left went to the heater strip.

The bottom left, I believe, is the (-) wire that goes to or comes from the light socket.

I couldn't seem to get power to the light socket just using the switch, though I want to retest that. I WAS able to get power to it once I figured out it was the (-) side that was being switched.

The light socket is pretty beat. The bulb works in other sockets, but not in that socket, 12v on or no. So I suppose I still don't know if I have current to that socket or just 12v after I jumped the wires.

So my question to you now is...

If I was able to bypass the switch and power up the socket, should I have seen power to the eyebrow and should the unit have powered up?

'cuz nunna' that happened.

Or is there another wire that I should jump for that. I believe there are 3 coming through the fridge wall to the switch/heater assembly. One is (+), one (-) and I believe the 3rd may be neither at present. However, I don't recall trying to see what happens if I put the meter to that wire with either the (+) or (-) wires.