Repairing a small dorm refrigerator

 

The small refrigerator got full of frost and ice in the freezer. You said to yourself their is one more hot pocket in that ice box I just know it. But I can't get to it. So what did you do? You took an ice pick to that sucker to defrost it and suddenly you hear a Hisssssss, OOPz! Is it ruined or can it be fixed? Yep it can be fixed easily. To start you must clean the ice box up real good around the hole. Buy a 2 part epoxy kit and follow the directions. Let the patch cure for at least 24 hours(place a shielded 100 watt light bulb in there to help dry the patch if you like). Next you will need to tap into the sealed system. Get an A-1 line tap and attach it to the low side line. The low side line will be the one that does NOT lead out to the cooling fins on back of the ice box. Here is the tricky part, the sealed system must be free of any air at all or the freon will make ice crystals and block the flow. It is ideal to remove the air with a vacuum pump. You need gauges to do it right. The gauges will have 3 hoses. Blue(low side)red(high side)yellow(freon). Put your blue hose on the A-1 tap, connect your freon to the yellow hose, and put the red hose on the vacuum pump. Open all the valves on the gauges and turn on the vacuum pump.(Leave the freon closed). After 30 minutes close all valves and shut down vacuum pump. If the vacuum holds, open the freon can and crack open the blue hose, let the freon go in slowly till it equalizes. Bubble test for leaks at the patch. Plug in the ice box and watch the guage drop. The needle on the blue gauge should be close to 5 PSI for a correct charge (over charging will choke down the compressor,not good). Remember the ice box only holds 4 ounces! That is one third of a 12 ounce can. Weigh it in if you want to be exact. Check for leaks. If all goes well it will be good as new.