NOMADICISTA

I just gutted a 70's camper and aquired a Dometic fridge. It probably has not been used since. Does anyone have any knowledge of, and how I should go about trying to bring this thing back to life?

thanks,
Terry

Dometic has had very good support in the past, I bet you can download a manual for it off the web.

Chuck

First after removing it of coarse clean it up, there will be a flame chamber above where the burner tube is make sure you clean this it exits near the top, this is basically your chimney, and is also where the fumes from a little larger than a pilot light will exit, while looking at the rear of fridge unit if there is some yellow looking stuff that looks like dried contact cement the solution has leaked and will cost more to get it fixed than its worth probably. If there is no sign of leaking I would plug the plug in to start with and set control to electric and the coldest setting, you will not hear anything running so don't worry the fridge needs to be as close to level as possible also, after a few hours check inside to see if it is getting cool it will usually take 4 to 6 hours to reach a point where it is cooling, but on the back you will be able to feel some heat near where the element is, if not the heating element could be bad, before buying a heat element for it I would hook it up to propane since you will probably have all the stuff there already anyway, make sure to hook it up using a propane regulator and not directly to the bottle (not trying to sound like a wise ass just have no earthly idea who will read this) bleed the air out of the line with that old of a unit it will not have a peizo type lighter but could have been added or a newer fridge

All good advice. I'd say that you should start to feel some cooling within 20-30 minutes by feeling the freezer plate in the top of the fridge compartment. It might take 4-6 hours before the inside really cools down, but you should feel some cooling much faster than that if it's working.

If it's not working after a couple of hours, unplug it, stand it upside down for 24 hours, set it upright for another 24 and try again. These things sometimes get vapor locks which inverting will help clear.

If it's not working after that, it's probably a junker. Use it like I do mine, as an icebox.

here's a google search page using '1970's Dometic manual' as a search term..

http://search.yahoo.com/search?ei=utf-8 ... tic+manual

Mike

sharky, some prob with the option

as my link isn't 'blue-ing' up

feel free to fix it for me and delete these last 3 lines..

Thanks for all the responses. All of them helpful!

Terry

Some Housekeeping:

Mike, the forum software doesn't like the apostrophe in the "1970's", it interperets it as a special character. I tried replacing it with unicode, but that didn't help, so I just took it out, the results of the search are the same, as search engines and directories just ignore it anyway.

Searching for a manual is basically useless, I've found. First of all, there are the two meanings of the same spelling. Second, there are too many sites that use "manual" as a honey pot to trap views, few of them offer an actual manual, and those that do charge or require creating an account loaded with personal information.

James (graydawg) sent me an email about his qualifying the connection of a propane line to the fridge, mentioning the possibility of liability if someone did it wrong. I hear that, never can be too careful these days, try to be helpful and get yourself sued by some random yahoo who finds this online and does it wrong.

A friend who works at a hardware store tells me that they have to be very careful when they sell clothes dryer cords. They tell the customer to bring the cord back it if doesn't fit their receptacle. Now they have to caution the customer to not test fit the cord with raw ends into a live 240 volt socket. You'd think someone would figure that out for themselves, but noooooo.....

Yeah, and don't change the belts on your car with the engine running...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQhfcdQf1QA

Chuck...wow that is pretty darn cool!

I had tried to delete my response actually and couldn't to much time had passed, I am a hunt and peck typier and had another short story novel typed in but can't retrieve it now and was scared I would cause a liability issue but here goes, sue me if you mess up there ain't much to get.
after hooking the propane and push in the button to lite it, when you do get it to lite you will have to hold the button in until the thermo coupler gets warm and the flame will stay lit by itself, may take several tries but if it will not stay lit the thermo coupler is probably bad and especially that old of unit check a home depot or lowes type store and see if you can find one that will work camper supply will have it butt $ higher after trying it upon replacing the thermo coupler it still does not get cold or cold enough, unhook the propane, unplug electric cord and turn the unit upside down, use a rubber hammer and lightly tap the rear coils leave it overnight and continue this ordeal of turning and lightly tapping for a few days will generally clear up a vapor lock if there is one, after sitting upright for say 4 hrs to let the unit and solution settle, try it again, has actually worked a couple of times for me (26 years in a rv) if it will not get cold enough try running a small fan over coils and they always seem to cool better on propane. Hope this helps someone. James Smith in da GRAYDAWG

I have actually done it on my old dune buggy years ago, (after buying a case of beer lost the bet also) just to see if I could, but with the alternator or generater not going the fans not turning either, and will lock up soon, the actual reason for most old VW's death, plus old gas hoses and not adjusting the valves contributed. James in da GRAYDAWG