Fridge not cooling - Montana Owners Club

RCMP03 · 07-02-2007, 05:11 PM

Hello All,

Have another problem here.

We have had our Monty parked out front for 3 days with fridge on. It is very hot outside, but I would think it should be colder then 75 degrees inside the box! I have it set to the coldest on the setting above the door. We have tried it on gas and elect. The level bubble is half in and half out of the level (didn't affect it before, but then again it was winter). The little white card that slips on the slats is all the way to the right inside the box. Is that to the coldest, or should I slide it over to the left a few slats?

It goes to the dealer tomorrow for the brake issue (recent post) and we will certainly ask them to check the fridge too. Does anyone have any suggestions?

We go on our trip on Wednesday and will hate like heck to have to live out of an ice chest!

Thanks all!
Sue

EagleRunner · 07-02-2007, 06:25 PM

RCMP03,
Sorry to hear about your fridge problem. The thermistor, what you may possibly be referring to as the white card you on the slots, is actually a fine tuning of the temperature inside the box. The thermistor actually slides up and down the far right cooling fin. The fine tuning comes in with the position of that thermistor. Up is for cooling while down is for less cooling. This thermistor will only adjust the temp by a few degrees, so the problem you are experiencing is much more critical.

The level is critical, but you are well within tolerance range if you are near center bubble with the small square bubble level.

So that leaves the heart of the refridge itself. Several things come into mind since you are experiencing problem on both AC and GAS. One is the main control board. The other, more critical, is a leak. Do you smell a strong amonia odor coming from the outside refridge opening? Any yellow stains on the evaporator piping? If you answered yes to any of the last two question, you have a leak. Fortunately, there is a recall for these refers and you may have one that is listed. Check on the Dometic site for those units effected.

I hope this helps. Perhaps someone else can come along and offer some additional suggestions for you. Good Luck in getting a quick resolve.

bsmeaton · 07-02-2007, 07:44 PM

If you're NOT running the AC or ventilating the Monty out in that heat, I don't think the fridge will have a chance. In the heat, our unoccupied Monty can be as hot as 20 degrees over ambient, putting the inside at around 120 degrees. Enough to push liquid soap up through the spout. Those refrigerators are just not that efficient, and are worse when empty.

I would try running a fantastic fan to get some air moving in the trailer, and put a bag of ice in the freezer to give it a boost.

Just my thoughts - curious what you find out.

rlrich · 07-02-2007, 11:07 PM

My fridge went to hell a month ago. Still waiting for the part (cooling unit backordered from Sweden - imagine that). Anyway, the only indication of a problem was the freezer quit freezing. All the lights worked on the electrical side and the fridge would light and burn with no problem on the gas side. I went out and felt the cooling unit (black pipe that winds back and forth up the back of the fridge) and found only the bottom length to be warm. The pipe went cold after the first turn in the pipe. I had to take the trailer to the nearest Dometic service center (which was a major pain considering we live full time in our trailer and work nights, attempt to sleep days) for diagnosis. They said the cooling unit was plugged. Dometic authorized a new cooling unit and said it would be in our hands in three days. Well, after arranging a day off work and making another appointment to replace the cooling unit, the cooling unit never showed up. After numerous phone calls, I found out about the backorder. Incompetant jerks could have at least picked up a phone and let the dealer fixing my fridge know about the backorder. So we have no idea when the boat or submarine or raft will arrive from Sweden with my cooling unit. Although it is still under full warranty, I'm wishing I had spent $500 and ordered a rebuilt cooling unit and installed it myself. Rebuilt cooling units with 2 year warranties are readily available. Life sucks living out of a dorm size fridge and no freezer.

I certainly hope your experience turns out better than mine.

RCMP03 · 07-03-2007, 06:43 AM

Hello Everyone,

I feel sooooo stupid! It turns out that when my husband took the propane tanks off the trailer to fill, we did not bleed the line. I turned on all burners on the stove, which took a while indicating the gas was not built up yet in the line. The fridge is cooling beautifully now. It probably was working on AC too, but we uplugged before checking the temp (daaaaa). Anyways, stressed over nothing.....

Thank you for your comments....lots of good info. Especially the fine tuning of the box temp. I could not remember what the guy had told us! Now I know....thanks EagleRunner!

We have had the fantastic fan and opened the vents throughout this time as you are right, it is like an oven in there! We are heading to Williams where the temps are warm....hope the one A/C cuts it! We will be looking into a 2nd A/C unit, but not sure if we can use it seeing how most RV sites we have been only offer 30 amp. The one we are going to however has 50amp....will be nice!

Hopefully we are past the little problems now and enjoy! Happy RVing everyone and have a safe and wonderful summer.

Sue

VanMan · 07-03-2007, 04:34 PM

When we were fulltiming a while back in a VERY hot climate, we would put a small fan (one of the little round "personal size" oscillating fans w/o the oscillating turned on) behind the fridge outside pointing upward on the coils to keep it a little cool. I'm not real sure if it helped, but sure didn't hurt anything.

EagleRunner · 07-03-2007, 04:39 PM

Sue,

Glad to hear all is well. Don't beat yourself up that way! We all have had our times on that side of the fence and overlooked something so simple. This forum is a great help and has been to us all.

An easy way to remember how to use the thermistor for fine tuning the temp in the fridge is:

UP North is Cool
Down South is Warm

Now go out and enjoy yourselves!

Happy RV'ing!

richfaa · 07-03-2007, 05:38 PM

Welcome to the IDSS club (I did something stupid) of which I am the grand fuba. Once spent about 1 hour trying to figure out why there was no power to the camper..and then I turned on the power at the pedestal..

fulltimedreamer · 07-03-2007, 06:09 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

Welcome to the IDSS club (I did something stupid) of which I am the grand fuba. Once spent about 1 hour trying to figure out why there was no power to the camper..and then I turned on the power at the pedestal..

Now Rich, that sounds like something I would do.

skypilot · 07-04-2007, 10:39 AM

Something else that happened to me this past fall -- my refrigerator is in the slide so there are two side vents (one top, one bottom) instead of the roof vent and bottom). There is supposed to be a small fan inside to help 'push' the air up and out to cool the stack; however, if the fan is not working (supposed to cut on when temp is 100 or so degrees) or if the air path is blocked by insulation, then you'll get little or no cooling. There are several posts on various forums about adding a larger fan (12 volt computer cooling fan; RV supply stores now even sell auxiliary stack cooling fans) will help especially in warmer climates. As for the insulation; there is quite a bit up there and with the bouncing around of traveling, mine at least, migrated some and blocked the air flow. Moved the insulation back and actually installed an aluminum foil 'fence' and everything worked again.

Safe travels.

richfaa · 07-04-2007, 01:11 PM

About those samll fridge fans.. We have always used one. We were told at a seminar,Might have been at the fall rally, that those fans actually impede the air flow in the fridge and what we needed to do was to not pack the fridge to full and try to keep the front of the shelves clear so that the air could flow.... We removed the fan and have not had a problem of any kind

skypilot · 07-04-2007, 06:12 PM

Rich: This fan is not inside the refer -- it is in the back of the unit -- it helps to push (in mine at least) air up the back by the flue so that the unit cools better. Since my top vent is not on the roof, Dometic has a service bulletin out and this fan kit to help push air through the back better -- with the roof vent, there is better upward (convection) flow. Hope this link will work as this is the kit that Dometic now has available for slide mounted units: http://www.dometic.com/templates/Pro...ProductID=2428 .

I heartily agree with your comment about the 'inside the fridge' fans; had one, used it twice and then stopped. Didn't seem to help at all and was eating up D cell batteries. Better to load the fridge so that air can flow around the contents freely.

gungho · 07-04-2007, 06:36 PM

another trick which sometimes works on a so called plugged coil is to turn the frige upside down for a while and this will unplug it

VanMan · 07-05-2007, 10:57 AM

One would REALLY have to be "gungho" to pull the fridge out to do that !!

sreigle · 07-05-2007, 03:10 PM

Rich, I have done that same thing at the power pedestal. Turned it on to check it out. Turned it off to plug in. Left it off until Vicki told me we have no power in the rig.

Sue, I'm glad you got things figured out with the fridge. As others said, don't beat yourself up. Rich says he's the grand tuba of screwups but I beg to differ with him. I think I'm right there with him. A couple of times we've had threads where we "confess" to our screwups, hoping it will help the new folks both to learn from our mistakes and to understand it's going to happen so don't be embarrassed. Just learn and let life go on.

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