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Refer Madness – Where to get some?
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Dang, I go on a business trip, followed up by a night of camping in the mountains the someone buys the parts out from under me 🙂
Thanks Al, just got back and will go through Tom’s steps of trouble shooting now. Hopefully will be something slightly simple and fixable.
Hmm, so pulled the bottom grill and drip pan. No knob to turn anywhere in the bottom. Found a way to force a manual defrost cycle (I think). Trying that to see if it will defrost. Then pull the back panel in the freezer and see what it looks like and go from there.
Oh ye, my Amana model is an SBD20S4E just in case that matters.
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Charles,
If you don’t have one of these above your drip pan, then your’s has a circuit board.
The red circle above is the knurled timer knob and sticks out about 1/2 inch so it can be turned by hand.
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So finally got some time to dig further into the fridge issue. Still holding at 32 in the freezer and about 40-41 in the fridge. Pulled the rear panel out of the freezer compartment and the coils showing no frost at all. So it’s not a defrost issue 🙁
Fan is running fine as well.
Could be a temp switch maybe? Will see how to diagnose and trouble shoot that.
The bottom coils have been dirty although I clean them about every 4 or so months (shop vac with a small plastic tube to get in there and clean all the dust bunnies out. From what I can hear and tell, the compressor is running and the fan for that is running (i can hear it run and shut off everyone in a while).
From some reading, it could be a leak in the system which would require the fridge to most likely be slide out into the hall and worked on to fix. This could be an expensive repair and possible not take, meaning I would still need a new fridge.
But since the temp switch it accessable, I will do that on my own and see how it goes.
If that doesn’t take then I will limp back east with a cold fridge (the freezer side) and get a new GE installed there (Tam never really liked the side by side setup anyways and wantes a top/bottom setup. Plus the SS would add a little light to the hallway so it’s not a hard sell in th end.
On the Cruise Air issue, I did find a small leak on one of the lines/fixtures. Tightened it up, however I think the damage is done (meaning coolant leaked out so the unit now needs a recharge). If I plan my timing right and take a north route back east I can live without the bedroom AC for a little longer. The AC next to th fridge works much better after cleaning the filter however, so a well placed fan will push some of that air to the bedroom in a pinch.
On a side note. for people with Cruise Airs, do you know you need to clean the filter screens every once in a while? You would be surprised how much dust gets built up on the ones where the intakes of on the floor!
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You’re probably further ahead to just replace it Charles and not worry about it anymore. Remember, the freezer needs to be at zero or below. As a last resort, your could pull it out and get a service guy (don’t tell them it’s in a motorhome they probably won’t come out) to check it out, but it’s on borrowed time no matter what.
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Tom,
Thats my thinking. The fact it’s 18 years old, been driving through some of the worst city highways in the country multiple times, it’s amazing these things actually last as long as they do.
One good thing is we have residential units and not the dual source units found in a lot of coaches/RV’s. Get a price tag on a nice side by side/bottom freezer one of those!!! I’ve know a couple people just this year that had to replace one of those units and just opted for a house fridge in the end as the price was less then half.
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There is the battery problem. Bet a new refigerator will make a big difference
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I am a believer in things running all the time… seems to me they break when they are turned on… refrigerators are built to run 24/7 … Mine have never been turned off and won’t be.I run my cruisairs all the time too…I think the cool bus helps the refrigerator temps too.
I even turn on the TV’s to keep the frig and ACs company !!
PS… I also run my mouth all the time too !!! LOL
Cheers, Diane
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Diane, I agree 100% about keeping things running. In our previous coach we never turned off the Jenn-Air during 7.5 yrs. that we owned it except for service (not often).
At home, we have had several Sub Zero’s that broke just sitting there in a climate controlled house that didn’t bounce down the road…….the Jenn-Air bounced down the road for 7.5 yrs. and no problems at all.
When the new coach was being built we requested a Jenn-Air which I’m sure is the same unit of several other brands. So far, at almost 2 yrs., it’s doing fine! I’ve been very disappointed with Sub Zero, the quality apparently has gone down with the units in our house.
I see now that Liberty has been installing Jenn-Air since our purchase. If I’m not mistaken, a friend that bought a Kitchen-Aid looks just like our Jenn-Air but has different handles.
Mark
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Hi,we have a 2000 cc magna ,thinking about removeing the gas-elect frig ,replaceing it with a smaller 14.5 ,i was thinking about putting a switch on the defrost heater to turn heater off when not on power to have a longer run time on the batt,then turn on the defrost heater when on the road or a power hok up.Ank input on this idea,i am a retire electrican so wireing is not a issu,thanks charles .NC Weaverville
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A lot of the ideas to deal with a problem tend to attack the symptoms and not the disease.
The reason to turn off the defrost heater is to allow the coach to go longer periods before the need to recharge the house batteries. The real solution is to have a reasonably large bank of batteries capable of handling real world situations. If you want to reduce current draw, why stop with modifying a perfectly good refrigerator that needs the defrost cycle? Why not identify all phantom loads such as clocks, thermometers, the door bell, the dash radio memory, and all the little LED indicator lights that show something has power. If you really want to save the batteries, why not turn off the inverters as soon as you go to bed. Even with low current draws the inverters are not very efficient. The refrigerator will be fine without power all night long and by doing that it will also be defrosted.
We all use our coaches differently so if I had a coach with an abundance of battery power, yet went from power pole to power pole I would be dragging around excess weight and replacing expensive batteries I really did not need. On the other hand, if I did a lot of dry camping, yet my batteries would be dead by morning if I did not recharge them in the middle of the night, they I did not have enough battery capacity and my coach was not going to work well for my normal use. The key is having the right coach.
As you sense I think the solution is more battery capacity, but instead of adding a manual shut off to the defrost heater why not just add a timer that you set so the defrost heater is automatically turned off and comes back on so it is not another thing you have to remember to do? These are supposed to be recreational vehicles so we should not have to be slaves to them trying to do things manually.
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