Propane fridge repair 101?

Besides cleaning out the flue, take out the gas orfice and soak it in alcohol (not the potable type:biggrin and then blow it out with compressed air. Do not try to poke a wire or anything else through it or you will destroy the orfice. Rhintransit is right about how far below ambient temperature you are able to go, but if the electricity is taking it 40 degrees below ambient, then you should expect pretty close to the same with gas. Another problem that is very common is the regulator in your MHO may be getting old and stuck with the oil used in Mexico. Check your flame when you have several burners on with the stove to see if you start getting orange or less flame than normal. Some of those regulators are, in fact, adjustable, and can be reset to get closer to 11 inches of water column. I have a homemade watercolumn meter but if you can not find one of those, then you can have it checked at home.

Wow. great advice. I never thought of checking the pressure regulator. For sure it's not an ambient air temperature problem because the last time I used it over a month ago was in Coastal California at 65 degree max. temp. Of course the irony is the propane fridge in the trailer in Baja worked like a charm last week at 25 degrees warmer and it's 17 years older.

I'm a little confused about components. What is the difference between the "burner", the "jet" and the "gas orifice"? Are they not all the same part?

I'm going to take it apart this weekend and let you know what happens. Can't thank everybody enough for the valuable advice!

Is your propane gas refrigerator level?

Is anything blocking your propane gas refrigerator vents?

Are the gasket rubbers around the door damaged or misaligned?

Is there an ammonia smell coming from inside your propane gas refrigerator?

Is there is a yellowish powder or stain on or near the refrigerator cooling unit? ***refrigerant is leaking from the cooling unit and chances are it will need replacing

run the unit on gas and 120 volts to make sure it is not the controls.
If it runs well on one and not the other there is a good chance the controls are the problem.

check that the flame stays on when on gas.
If it is not the thermostat could be switching off too early.

sell the MH and buy a trailer

IT worked

This thread got me off my well used arse and ripped my water heater apart...now the sputtering is gone and I have a nice blue flame with no soot. It now goes from zero to hot in 25 minutes... 50% improvement more or less.
Thanks Nomads

glad to help.

OK. I removed the burner ass'y and shook out a load of soot, gunk, crud, whatever is the correct term. Then cleaned out the burner tube thoroughly with alcohol (not the sipping type). I noticed there's a 2nd sensor above the flame besides the thermocoupler. What is this for, temp. sensing? Could this be the culprit.

Anywho, I fired it up about 45 minutes ago, put a cup of water in the freezer and two cans of Tecate in the fridge. If it freezes the water and chills the Tecate by the end of the day, I'll celebrate by imbibing the test subjects



...if not it's back to the drawing board.

Grover, duh, you're right about the igniter. How else would it light itself?

I've given it 24+ hrs. to stabilize and the water in the cup is frozen solid. The ambient temp. is ranging from about 52 - 75 F. It's now 18 degrees F. in the freezer. Is that normal to be that far below freezing?

The fridge is another matter. 54 degrees. Shouldn't it be more like 45 degrees? Although the Tecate seems cold enough to drink.

I've turned down the temp. control some more and will give it to the end of the day and test again. Then I"m going to switch it over to 110 v. and compare the temps. tomorrow.

Those old refrigs make good smokers

Quote:

Originally posted by Cypress Those old refrigs make good smokers

Yeah. I'm starting to think a couple coolers with a thick block of ice shoved underneath in the cargo compartments ain't such a bad idea.

Quote:

Originally posted by Al G This thread got me off my well used arse and ripped my water heater apart...now the sputtering is gone and I have a nice blue flame with no soot. It now goes from zero to hot in 25 minutes... 50% improvement more or less. Thanks Nomads

Doesn't do much to get your Pacifico cold however

Well, 54 degrees was optimistic. That was this morning and it never got below 58 for the rest of the afternoon.

The freezer is staying a consistent 18 degrees though.

Grover, I don't think its the door gasket, it seems to close tightly. I switched it over to 110 volt so I can compare temps in the morning and that will (or won't) rule out the seal.

Neal, the ambient is now 59 and dropping quickly with a coastal fog coming in. I don't think it got much above 65 today and the gloom never fully lifted.

Lou, I'd be happy if the fridge could drop 30 degrees below ambient but I can see how that wouldn't fly in a San Felipe summer.

Last resort is drive the road whale to our only RV repair shop in town but somehow I'm not too thrilled with the idea of giving up my left one!

and the diagnosis is...

For those of you who have been losing sleep, tormented by what was wrong with my propane fridge. Worked on it this weekend, went out this morning to check the temp after running all afternoon and night on propane....36 degrees F.!!!! And the freezer is colder than a witch's mammary gland as well.

Several weeks ago, I talked to the local RV repair shop and explained the problem. They said hands down it was a gunk build-up towards the bottom of the vent tube and below the electric heater element. He said the best way to access it was from the top, pulling out the baffles and running a rag down through the vent. Looking down into the vent, this was nearly impossible because the roof vent was sealed with a screen and the vent tube was so far down, it could barely be seen with a flashlight.

Plan B was to remove the burner ass'y again (PITA) and access from the bottom which is difficult because there's only 3 or so inches of access space below the bottom of the tube to ram something up in there. First thing I used was a flexible, foam tipped swab dipped in alcohol. Like a Q-tip but longer and with a fatter foam tip - I use them to clean the heads on tape decks. This came back encrusted with soot and knocked loose some big chunks of the black gunk. To do it even better, I took a long, flexible retrieval tool and wrapped a small piece of rag around it soaked in alcohol and reamed it around in there as far as I could go. This also came back black but the chunks all but stopped dropping out.

Replacing the burner tube ass'y, I broke off one of the wire connections to the thermocoupler, tried to solder it but ended up having to buy another for $40. The new one is a better sealed design which would avoid this problem.

RV shop said they do a maintanence service on propane fridges for $125. which includes cleaning out the burner and the vent tube - exactly what I did. Had I known what I was doing to begin with, I could have done this whole job in under an hour.

Now, to fill that bad boy with brewskis and head to the beach for the 4th.!!

Hope others can learn from this experience.