Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 13:04:22 -0700
Reply-To: IR Student <irstudent@CSUCHICO.EDU>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: IR Student <irstudent@CSUCHICO.EDU>
Subject: Re: VW Camper Refrig repair
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Hi Ron,
I'm glad your interested in fixing it yourself and I hope that I can be
helpful. Yes I believe you are capable of fixing it yourself if you own
a screwdriver and a cresent wrench. That's about all it takes to work
on one of these things. Pretty simple!
The first question I have to ask is, "Do you really know that your
fridge is lighting?" The way you'd be able to tell is to ignite the
fridge the way you normaly would and see if the flame indicator on you
led light panel comes on, make sure you leave your finger on the bypass
valve (safety shutoff valve) this whole time.. The other way would be
to see if you can see it in the burner glass window. Now it you can't
see either of these then it's probably not lighting. If you do verify
that there is a flame then when you remove your finger from the safety
shutoff valve does the flame go out? If it does you have found your
problem, it's somewhere in your safety shutoff valve system and you need
to remove your fridge to check this out. If the fridge isn't lighting
at all then you'll have to pull it anyway.
Pulling out the refrigerator:
This can be tricky but I know you can do it. Take off the face plate
which the door is mounted on. It has a tounge and grove joint on the
left hand side, so pry the right hand side out after removing the screws
and then slide it to the right. There 2 screws on each side of the
fridge cabinet that hold it firmly in place from sliding in and out.
You'll have to find them by going though the adjacent cabinet doors and
removing them. Next you'll want to remove the flue vent on the outside
and then the 2 screw that hold the pipe in place. Now back to the
inside. Limber up because you now need to crawl under the sink to
remove the gas line from the fridge. Take out the shelf under the sink
and in the upper left hand corner you'll see the copper line going up
the the back of the fridge. After you shut off the propane at the tank
unscrew the connection at the back of the fridge. Unplug the 110 from
under the sink and now your set to start pulling. The fridge will slide
staight forward out from the cabinet. There will be resistance. the
flue on the back of the fridge will start to hit the the cabinet that
supports the stove. All you need to do is keep pulling. Look though
the flue hole to make sure the tabs on the flue vent aren't catching on
metal or pieces of plywood. Eventually you'll get to the point where
you will need to start bending the flue pipes just buy pulling harder.
This is OK. They are ribbed so that they can take this kind of bending.
I've taken mine out about 10 times and still returns to it's original
shape with no problem. There is one small problem that I haven't been
able to get around with out a little cutting. It makes getting the
fridge back in MUCH easier. Take a look at this picture of the inside
of the refrigerator cabinet after the fridge had been taken out.
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~bhein/fridge/cabinet.gif The small piece
of board below the hole where the flue goes through was removed. This
was to make getting the flue unbent to fit back into the hole during
installation easier. When installing take off that off that little
grill on the left hand side and put your hand in there to guide the flue
back into the outside hole.
I really hope that this isn't too wordy and that you will be able to
understand it. I know that you'll need more info for troubleshooting
this thing so just let me know and I'll respond in more detail. I'm
just running out of time right now.
Good luck.
Blake Heinlein
irstudent@csuchico.edu - work account - (530) 898-5623
bhein@ecst.csuchico.edu - student account - (530) 345-7179
http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~bhein/
College of Mechanical Engineering
California State University, Chico
-----Original Message-----
From: Ron Pearson [SMTP:"Ronald M. Pearson"@ecentral.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 1998 9:45 PM
To: bhein@ecst.csuchico.edu
Subject: VW Camper Refrig repair
Hi, I found your web site on your camper and great article on
the frig.
I have a similar camper, a 1984 Westphalia. I'm wondering if
you can
provide some info on the Dometic refrigerator and whether I can
work on
it? I have not been able to get the pilot light to stay on
(after 14
years of good service I'm not complaining (too much!).
I suspect the thermocouple(s) would be the most likely
problem. Can
it be replaced easily and how do I get at it? I have pulled the
front
door panel off the frig and removed the top over the stove, but
it
appears I have to pull the stove off the whole thing to really
get at
the inside and back of the frig. Thats alot of propane lines and
other
stuff to deal with. Is that correct or is there another, simpler
way? Is
it better just to find an RV service center for all this?
Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Ron
