Hello,

I have a frigidaire upright freezer model LFFH21F7HWA I bought from a place that sells refurbished appliances. It's a few years old and looks nice, worked great for a few days. The temp alarm came on and I checked it out, temp was 20+ degrees. They gave me a warranty but when I called the number was disconnected .

So, I saw on the back that it takes R134a refrigerant and I have a sniffer for that... got it out and found that the high pressure test port used by the factory was leaking where it was soldered to the capillary bulb. I could tell that the repair person who sold it to me had repaired a connection close to that and I guess it got hot enough to melt the solder and let it leak. I got my torches and soldered it up, Hooked my automotive vacuum pump to the low pressure test port and pulled a vacuum, added a tiny dribble of oil and put the 134a can on a kitchen scale and metered out the specified 4.2 ounces, best I could anyway. It worked great, but then there was water on the floor after a few days.

I looked, and saw that the suction line was dripping water and the insulation wrap was cut halfway off, so I zip-tied it back on. Waited a few more days, more water and the suction line had frost on it, even on the part that isn't covered by the insulation wrap. So, I bought some insulation tape to repair that and taped it all the way right up to the compressor with the capillary line in the insulation too. My question now is, since that line wasn't insulated all the way to the compressor from the factory, am I causing a problem by doing that? and since the capillary line wasn't running in the insulation the whole way, am I messing up by doing that too? And finally, would the messed up insulation have caused the whole line to frost over like that, or is that an indication of low or high charge? I only have a tap on the low side and I get no pressure with it running on that port, but the specs say 0-14 psi is what I should see. I have lots of automotive experience with AC but nearly none with refrigeration systems. Thanks for any advice!

 

Normally those lines aren't insulated. The unit is slightly overcharged.

Most of the time with fridges.... there are no fittings. If there is one now...someone installed it.

 

This one had half of the suction line insulated with part # 216502500. It was insulated on the evaporator end while the compressor side was bare. Does it hurt anything for it to be insulated and for the capillary line to be insulated along with it? They were both together in the insulation at the one end, so I figured it might be okay for them to be insulated the whole way.

I'll bring the charge down a little and see what happens. Thanks!

 

Usually the line isn't fully insulated back to the compressor so that a little ambient heat on the pipe keeps liquid refrigerant from getting to the compressor.

 

Thanks, that's what I needed to know. I'll pull it back and untape part of it.