[C320-list] Fridge compressor replacement

[Jack Brennan]

Hi Graeme:

I sounds like you’ve already bought the replacement unit but, just in case, the Adler/Barbour Cold Machine comes with about 12 feet of tubing. I had to coil it in the rear port locker.

Jack Brennan
Sonas, 1998 Catalina 320
Tierra Verde, Fl.
Dolphin Cruising Club of Tampa Bay


Sent from Mail for Windows 10

From: Graeme Clark
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 8:38 AM
To: C320-List at catalina320.com
Subject: Re: [C320-list] Fridge compressor replacement

Quick update

I’ve removed the old unit and the evaporator plate from the cool box along with the tubing

The way mine was set up, the tubing exited into the aft port locker, routed under the shelf that the compressor sits on and then comes up through a hole in that shelf at the aft end to return back forward to connect to the compressor

My guess is that this made for easier connections as the big self seal couplings need space around them for a wrench

Long story short is that from the exit hole in the cool box that takes 10ft of piping. If I could make the connection to the compressor at the forward end that might save 2ft but no way will I do it with the standard 6ft pipe length, especially as some of that will be used within the cool box between the evaporator plate and the exit hole in the wall!

So either I buy an extension tube or I site the compressor somewhere else

On the 320 I used to have fractional ownership of, that had already been done and the compressor was near where the battery charger is sited above the small cupboard/stowage box that is accessed to rear of cool box

Of course there’s potential for heat build up there but I think it would be easy enough to repurpose the engine blower to suck air from that locker (the two are interconnected)

Difficult choices!

Graeme
#366
1996 

Sent from my phone. Excuse typos!