This RV Fridge Was A Fire Trap!

Our story begins in Northern California, north of Sacramento. We were staying at a Harvest Host, a lovely winery along the I-5, as we worked our way back home to Canada. We were awoken in the wee hours of the morning by our fridge alarm. After checking it out, we realized that it was no longer working on propane. It would only work on electrical power, household power, or pedestal power from an RV park, which we didn't have at this winery. We were really hooped. This is an old fridge. It's an absorption style fridge, the original one that was built into Moddy 27 years ago. We really liked it. It worked well for us over these years, until it didn't. But you know, to be truthful, we never felt comfortable with it, with the propane function. There were several times when we forgot to turn the propane off while on the highway, and it scared us. In many ways, this fridge felt and looked like a fire trap. But who knows, maybe the problem wasn't that significant. We should really get it checked out. So as we approached the Oregon area, we stopped off in Eugene and had a technician from Camping World check it out. They told us that it was going to cost $1,200 US, that's $1,700 Canadian, to install a new motherboard. Well, there was our answer. Once back at home, and after making a decision to go with a marine grade, electric only, compressor style fridge, the dismantling process began. We disconnected the electrical system, taped it off, but we still have this open propane line. Well, it's shut at the source, and the fridge is completely disconnected now from everything, so it can be moved out of the way. But I want to cap off this propane line, because we won't be using propane for the fridge anymore, and I think I eventually will take it out completely. But for now, I just want to cap it off to be safe. So inside, we've pulled the fuse, the 5 amp fuse, from the DC panel, and now we want to plug this. There are two ways to do that. One, you can just buy a flat plug to screw in here, or the way that I prefer to do it is with a flared plug, which is I think the better way. I'll show you what I mean. This is the flared plug, and you can see that when this is screwed, when this male portion is screwed into the female portion, it will tighten like that, and forms a nice tight seal. It's important to remember if you're doing it this way, please don't put tape on these threads. If you do that, it could inhibit this becoming tight, and I know the tendency is to put tape around it. Most of us do that. If you were putting a flat plug in without the flared portion, well then, yes, then you would wrap tape around the threads, and use a proper gas line tape. But for us, we're just going to screw this in, very simple. So let's get it, and let's go ahead and do that. I couldn't find a bottle, so I'm just going to use some soapy water on it. How not to remove, and they say it just slides out. Look at it, pull that out, trying to destroy that fridge. I think it'll come out now, Johnny. Okay, let's try it. Okay, this is how not to remove a Norcold refrigerator from your old Beaver motorhome. I tell you, Johnny and I, son Johnny and I, we've just ripped this thing apart. Trying to figure out why it won't just slide out, and we finally figured it out. There was a structural beam that went across the bottom that we've just broken out, and it was getting hung up on a very small lip here, and there was no give at the top. So when they put that in there, that must have just slid in perfectly, and then they let it drop down, and for us to get it out, well, we're gonna pack it up and go home now. Job well done. You gotta be kidding me. Okay, here is the closet after the vacuum, and then the fun part began. Once we got this filthy dinosaur of a looking fridge out, we realized there was no way it was going to fit out the front door, so we cut it in half. The hard way. Okay, this is not going as planned. Holy cow. Oh, there's blood on it from my hand, and we've got it pretty well dismantled. Really? This is your idea of good workmanship? Now, for those of you who know me, you know that I'm a marine fan versus RV supply stuff. I just have more confidence in marine-grade equipment, and every time we get a chance to upgrade Maude, our motorhome, I like to do it with a marine-grade item, and in this case, it's a refrigerator. I was about to order a brand-new compressor-style refrigerator, marine-grade, from a company in British Columbia, Canada, and it was going to be around $3,000, $25,000, $3,000. By the time you include shipping and tax and so on, it's a lot of money, and I contacted my local marine supplier in our hometown, because that's where this new fridge was going to be delivered, and he told me that he had a used one in his shop that he would sell me for $650. Well, here it is. Now, you may say, well, that looks like a POS. Well, that's what we're going to change. On the outside, it looks a little bit tacky, because the panel on the freezer compartment is worn, but, you know, that's just superficial. We're going to change the panels to make it look better, but just to show you what the fridge looks like on the outside, it's a Dometic. It was taken out of a boat, a 65-foot, 68-foot boat, and it's in really clean shape. I'm just going to try to bend down here to show you the compressor. It's a Danfoss compressor, made in Germany. These things are bulletproof. They're made to bounce around in boats. We have a Danfoss compressor on our sailboat, and it's been there for 24 years, and it's still working fine. It's got these great latches. I'm going to clean it up inside. Now, it's not huge, but it's bigger in terms of volume than our old Norcold in Moddy, our motorhome, because the one in Moddy is one of the absorption type refrigerators, which has a smaller inside area. So, there you go. So, what we're going to do is I'm going to replace the panel here and here. There are two screws holding this bottom plate on this edge, and it just comes off. So, with the fridge, I'm going to have to elevate it so I can get underneath and get the bottom plate off, and then the panel will just slip out, and it's so simple to get off. So, there's just two screws. Now, there was a little bit of glue under here, or silicone. They've just put... So, I just cut through that, and then this just... The panel... Let's match the fridge veneer with the same wood that's in Moddy, which is a maple. And what I just finished doing is cutting a new piece of veneer with maple. I think it's just over an eighth of an inch thick. It's not that thick, but it's all you need for a veneer facing. And I beveled the edges. I just sanded the edges lightly so that it slips into the grooves a little easier. Now, this will have eight coats of... I just use Minwax, and I'll show you the product that I'm using when we get to that. But we'll put eight coats of... It's really a spar varnish, and it'll look like a new fridge. Bob's your uncle. So, you can see that this one will just slide in once the spar varnish is on. And to show you what the freezer compartment looks like, this is the new piece of veneer. So, just wait till I put a finish on this because it looks pretty bland right now, but it will have a really nice sheen to it. Not a high gloss. It'll be more of a satin finish. Hey, I don't want to take you through everything that I'm doing. It would drive me nuts. I'm so slow. But just to give you an idea how I cut this wood, this veneer to match the pattern of the old one, is I just used a... It's a Milwaukee oscillating saw, and it works like a darn, just cutting the same pattern as the old one. And the finish that I'm using is... I know I sound like a salesman. I really don't. It's just that I like this stuff. I use it on our boat. It's a great product. It's Helmsman spar urethane. So, I've sanded this lightly with 220 sandpaper. I've dusted it, and I just use these cheap foam brushes because I just throw them away after each use. So, I'll just show you what... I wanted you to see what it looks like from this blonde kind of blah appearance to the first coat of the spar urethane, which will essentially just seal it. It won't give it much color. But after eight coats, it looks really nice. And we'll jump to that later on, okay? So, let's get on with it. Okay, today is the day we're going to install the fridge. Now, look at the cabin of Monty. It's just a mess. But this is the way I work. You can see the frame of the fridge is on the floor, but we had to strip it down to this bare shell just to get it in here. Without the frame, or sorry, with the frame on, it would not make it through the front door. And as well, I had to take off the screen door to get just the stripped down box in. Okay, let's take a look at what we're going to be doing. Come around the back. Here's the cabinet. It's been prepped. It's all been wiped down, cleaned out. After 27 years, it was pretty dirty. You can see the two leads for the DC system. And I don't know why Beaver did this, but you know, normally it's a red for positive and a black for negative. And we've got a white and a blue. And in Beaver's eyes, the blue is positive, and the white is negative. Go figure. Anyway, it's good wire. It's at least in good shape. And you can see the household power is right there for the fridge. And I have this loose. I'm just going to hang it outside for now, just to get it out of the way as we back the fridge in. And I'll just drop these over the side. So we've got a nice clean area to get the fridge into. It's going to be a tight fit. Oh, and what I wanted to show you is with the old system, which was a propane and electric fridge, the propane line came up through here. Now, we've taken that out because we're no longer going to use propane with this new fridge. But if every Armani was sold, then the new owners may choose to put in a fridge that operates on propane as well. And I didn't do this myself. I don't trust myself with this type of thing, and nor should we be doing this if we're not licensed. Just coming down here under this cabinet. So you can see at the back the tubing for the propane system. And you can see it's capped off right there. Now, the RV tech who is certified to certify propane systems, he did that for us. And it's tested. And, you know, hopefully there will never be a leak. But I'm going to have to make sure that the new owners, whoever buy Monty down the road after I fall off this earth, know that the system can be reactivated from there. And the good part is that if propane ever did get out, then right across the hallway is the propane sniffer. Hi, welcome to our kitchen where I'm having a cleaning and polishing and painting day. I'm doing the racks from the fridge and along with kneading desperately to be washed. They also were rusting a bit where the various lines come together. So I gave them a really good wash and went over them with rubbing alcohol, which surprisingly took off a lot of the rust. That really was a surprise. And then all the attachments for each end, I've washed with a toothbrush to make sure they got nice and clean. So everything is brand spanking, not new, but clean. So I'm just putting the finishing touches on my last rack. Then they need to dry for at least an hour before I move them. And then I'll take them to Monty so we can put them in the fridge. I just had a couple little bits left on this one that need to be done and I'm finished. So thanks for visiting. I'll see you at Monty. Hi, Annie. You got the racks. Oh, come on up. Come on in. Fantastic. They look better. Just don't look too closely. Do I get my own screwdriver too? On with the frame. It should fit even better now that it's all cleaned up. Yeah, it should. Ta-da. Now it may not look like much right now, but you wait till we get this finished. Good job, Sparkles. Thanks, George. Well, it's taken me all day to do what most people would have done in maybe two, three hours. Back and forth for materials and just dragging my butt. Anyway, I'm in the final stages of getting this fridge secured. I've just placed this piece of maple along the edge here. It's a one by two piece of maple to match this. Actually, it's kind of silly to use maple in a way because this is just going to be covered up with a cover plate. And then I'm going to install a volt, combination volt and ammeter so we can look at our voltage and we can look at our amperage for the fridge. And there's going to be an on off switch because this fridge doesn't have a switch out here on the facing. So to turn it off, it's kind of a direct drive. There's a dial inside. So it means every time you want to turn it off, you have to open up the fridge and work your way past all the stuff in the fridge and then turn the dial off. And the dial is really hard to turn off. So I'm going to install an on off switch up here. It'll have a light on it, so we'll know when it's on. And as well, there'll be an amperage device beside. Oh, and so right now I'm just in the final stage of just securing the fridge to this bar that is now secured to the sides. And I'm using these, I don't know what you call them. They're little cups and you just put the screw through them and then they hold a black, a little black button. It's a little plastic dish. The screw goes through the middle and then once the screw is holding that in place, you just, this cap snaps on top of it. But it's just a nice way of finishing off something like this. So I'll just show you here. It's going to snap the cover back on. There. And then we'll do this one over here. You hear a little click and then you know it's on. You can tell that the footprint of this fridge is a lot smaller than the old one. The old one went right to the top here. So we'll do something with this. But in the meantime, all I'm going to do is cover this with the same veneer that I used on the door facings. And it will just cover this and I'll screw it in with the same kind of caps, but they'll have a maple cap on them so they don't stand out too much. And then that's it for this season. Then we can do something there at another time when I have nothing else to do. Okay. We're at the fun part of this whole project, hooking it up. Okay. Stop right here. At this point in creating this video, I cannot stand listening to this guy for another second. He went on for about 12 minutes explaining what he was doing with this wiring. I can tell you in eight seconds, the white wire goes to the black wire. The blue wire goes to the red wire and that's your DC system. And for the AC system, the plug on the of the fridge simply goes into the outlet that's already in the cabinet. That's it. Unbelievable. I'll tie these all together later on with the little zap straps and we'll get this all tidied up. Let's go inside. It's warmer. Well, this project that has consumed most of the fall into the new year is now complete. Well, almost. It looks like I'm going to be redoing these panels. I didn't do very well, did I, with the color matching? I was trying to get this honey color but I didn't stain it beforehand. It's a maple veneer and I just applied polyurethane, hoping that it would blend in and it doesn't. So, Michaela and I both agreed, let's redo them. I've got the main template at home, the originals, and during the really crappy weather, I can just make two new ones and they just slip out. You just undo the bottom section here and it slides out. You put a new one in. It's not a big deal, but story of my life. But at least it looks new for the time being. And let's look inside.