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Appliances Home Repair

Vintage refrigerator repair? Where to start?

7 months ago

Bought a home built in the 1960s with appliances that seem to be original. All work except for the Amana refrigerator. The motor turns on but it isn’t getting cool in either compartment. I would love to get this working again but don’t know where to start. My internet searches have yielded lots of info on restoring the appearance of vintage appliances but not much on the mechanical workings. Not opposed to calling a repair person (would it need to be something other than appliance repair?)…We have some electrical and mechanical experience and wouldn’t mind attempting a repair ourselves, but would only do that after acquiring at least some knowledge as we’ve never repaired a fridge before. Would appreciate suggestions on how to tackle this, where to look for info, etc. TIA!

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Comments (7)

cat_ky
7 months ago
Call repair service. That frig will run forever once its repaired. If you can find an older repair person, all the better.
dadoes
7 months ago
The dishwasher is a KitchenAid model KDI-18 (Imperial, middle of the line). Production was from period of 11/1976 to 10/1979. The 18-series is considered the best vintage KitchenAid (before Whirlpool bought the company in 1986 and began to slowly seque the design to WP). The only mild glitch on the 18s is that the upper rack spray arm is a bit small and spray is slightly anemic into small-diameter items at the corners of the rack, such as glasses and cups.
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Ginger, if the burner/grill/broiler pilots are on but not the oven pilot (it has its own), it might be your safety valve -- look inside the warming drawers, etc, and see if it's mounted somewhere inside there. You hold down the red button and let it out slowly as you light the oven pilot. These darned pickle safety valves are the one thing that have broken twice on my own old OKM stove, still in regular daily heavy use in my house. (There's a dude out in CA who can repair them, name escapes me but easy to google and locate him.) If the oven pilot works but the oven element isn't lighting when you turn up the oven dial, it may mean there's a blockage, usually gunk in one of the holes that feeds the gas or air to the oven element (or else the pilot has been knocked around and bent somehow too far away to reach the element). Get a flashlight and open the floor of the oven to take a look. To clean, *turn off the gas completely for safety*, get a sharp darning needle (a toothpick is the right size but may break off and make things worse) and clean each tiny hole.
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Kendrah
7 months ago
My friends have a working fridge that I think is the same as yours. They have used it continuously. It is such an energy hog it is insane. Their electric bills are outrageous.
kaseki
7 months ago
As I recall, there were Amana refrigerators that used the side skin areas as the condenser heat exchanger to expel heat. The tubing was susceptible to moisture damage if the refrigerator wasn't used for a while, resulting in refrigerant leaks that couldn't be repaired. It is conceivable that such a unit could have the surface cooling system cut out of the loop and a conventional heat exchanger with fan mounted somewhere at the back or in the base.
centipede0705
Original Author
7 months ago
Thanks, all! We’ll definitely call a repair person. I turned it on a left it a few days to see if it would get down to temp. It would cycle on and off periodically, so it didn’t run continuously which made me wonder if a thermocouple was the issue. I’ve even considered seeing if we could somehow swap out the motor/cooling mechanism for a more energy efficient version while keeping the shell to be able to keep the aesthetic but I’m guessing that’s a bigger ask than how I see it in my mind. :)
wdccruise
7 months ago
"Where to start?"
dadoes
7 months ago
The dishwasher has appeal to vintage appliance collectors depending on the condition.

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