Old fridge not cooling but making funny noise

[TygerTung]

G'day everyone, I'm new to this refridgeration buiseness but I'm looking to get this olf fridge going.

My friend gave me this small old fridge, you can tell it's old because the motor says 1/8 hp on it.

Now we brought it over on the back of the ute, I left it sitting around for at least 24 hours to allow the refridgerent to settle, washed it out with some spray and wipe with a rag and hosed it all out then I moved it into the garage where I'm gonna have it running to keep the beers cold.

I plugged it in and it started going fine, the heat exchange panel inside was icing up nicely and getting cold, so I loaded the thing full of beers and put a bit of meat for the cat in the freezer bit(it's one of those freezer compartments inside the fridge) and put a bungee on the door as the magnetic seals were in pretty rough condition.

I came home however to find that it wasn't cold anymore, the meat had mostly defrosted. I pulled it out from the wall and I could hear a relay clicking and then a electrical noise as if the motor was trying to go, but it was seized. I touched the motor and it was pretty hot to the touch, so hot you couldn't hold your hand on it. I tried giving it a tap with a hammer with a bit of wood inbetween it to try to free it up, but it didn't want to play cricket!

Is this likely to be stuffed or is there some magical way that I can get it going without spending any money on it?

Cheers,

Sam

[Brian_UK]

Hi Sam and welcome to the forum.

Sorry buddy but in your own words - "It is stuffed."

The clicking sound is probably from the electrical overload, the casing is hot because the motor inside is cooked.

It's a problem that happens with old fridges, they have been running quite well for years but then you move it.

The shaft and bearings were perhaps already worn but were sat together and would run. When you moved it then all got jiggled about and the bearing surfaces moved.

Nice idea, but bin it and start afresh.

[TygerTung]

So I guess the only chance to make it run would be percussive maintainance to see if the motor may free up? Probably won't though, I guess I'll have to put something else in the landfill.

[TygerTung]

Yeah I tried a bit of percussive maintainance on it, however it didn't seem to work. Although the motor did seem to work, I could see it moving in the frame slightly and it made a motor noise, but then smoke started coming out of the control box when the relay started coming on so I decided it's probably not a good idea to try to use it.

I tried it again and the motor seemed to want to go, but quite a lot of smoke was coming out of the control box so I think it's probably not a good idea to try to use it.