Tcash
Samba Member
Joined: July 20, 2011
Posts: 12844
Location: San Jose, California, USA
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 Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2014 10:45 am Post subject: 1976 Refrigerator Overhaul (techtip) |
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Thanks goes out to eche_bus, for the great write up! His build thread can be found here. eche_bus: 1976 Westfalia Deluxe Camper
Refrigerator Overhaul part I - original condition[/b]
The winter here in MN was long and brutal and with an unheated garage, the focus was on interior cabinet overhaul that could be done inside. A lot of the cabinet work was performed in parallel, but the fridge was the first to get completed (finally!  ). Man, it was a lot of work.
Let's begin with the original condition. This tired old horse still worked, but it showed every bit of its nearly 40 years. Scuffed/scratched/chipped/lifting laminate, with extra drilled holes, worn out paint, shrunk and warped T-molding, missing tie-down straps, warped and stained Masonite back panel ... that was just the outside.
Inside, the fridge cover had a healthy coat of mildew around the seal.
The vent cover's varnish was worn out, the wood stained, and brass hinge showing plenty of age.
The metal top frame was chipped and rusting here and there.
The control panel (this is a USA Westy) was scuffed, scratched and rusting under the paint.
The cooling fins were not pretty.
... and that was what we could see before taking it apart.
Refrigerator Overhaul part II - disassembly[/b]
So let's tear it apart. 
First thing we (my wife helped tremendously) did was to remove the big laminate panel. Iron plus wide putty knife are the right tools. Heat to soften glue, push knife between panel and wood in softened area, repeat. Do not use force. You are shearing off glue softened by heat. Unheated glue does not shear. Force = broken laminate.
The top metal frame is removed by unbolting the wood strip at the top back and then removing the sheet metal screws around the perimeter. Sorry no photo. Got busy and forgot.
The fridge box and cooling "stuff" all comes out as a unit by removing 4 (?) screws from the face and the two screws located where I'm pointing in this photo:
Out she goes.
With the fridge parts out of the way, we can see the discoloration left by the heat. That will get sanded down and re-varnished along with much of the cabinet interior. At this point, the Masonite backing board is still stapled in, but after a feeble attempt to restore it, it was removed.
Time to start fixing stuff.
Refrigerator Overhaul part III - refurbishing[/b]
Stripped down to a bare hull, the fridge was now ready to thoroughly clean years of accumulated gunk and rodent exposure. The varnish was still good in the fridge box area, so I sanded and re-varnished the floor(s) and the area under the cooling "mechanism" that had discolored. It's more even in tone in the areas that will show. The lighter areas immediately under the fins and tubes will not be visible.
The area at the very bottom was also sealed with several coats of varnish to protect it from inevitable moisture. No more mouse piss!
The outer face was cleaned of glue residue (yeah, that's a whole lotta fun! ) and final sanded with 180 grit using a random orbital sander. Any chips/gouges were filled.
Here's the huge laminate panel, frightening as I considered coating it in contact cement and precisely aligning it with the cabinet again. These cabinets will all be repaired using OG laminate, and although it was split from top to bottom, I had no better panel to use than the one that came off it originally. So, the split was superglued to hold it together well enough to be installed.
Needless to say, we had our hands full gluing and aligning the panel with the cabinet. The process wasn't photographed here, but I will show you further on. Let's just say for now that combining contact cement with precise alignment is not for the faint of heart. Some of the fading you see here will be removed in a later step.
Let's get that fridge stuff back in the box. Looks a little better now, eh? Amazing what a good cleaning and paint will do!
Repainted frame and hinge bar installed.
Repainted temperature control panel installed.
New Masonite backing panel and refinished storage box installed.
Good enough for ya? 
And onwards to complete the outside ...
Refrigerator Overhaul part IV - more refurbishing and done!
With the insides finished, "all" that remains is to finish the top covers and tie-downs. Sounds simple enough, but still plenty time-consuming.
Those tired old brass hinges needed help. Stripped off the worn coating, polished and recoated, they look much better.
Photo: old one at top, polished at bottom.
Can't forget the screws, right?
OK, time to re-laminate the top covers. But first, a "Thank You" ...
I am extremely grateful to one of TheSamba members, DaleNW who provided me with all the old OG laminate he removed from his Westy to use for replacement and repair. I could not have done what you see here without this generous help.
The laminate for both covers was pretty badly damaged and needed replacement. Fortunately DaleNW's old vent cover laminate was in good shape. However, the fridge cover laminate piece was also damaged so I had no choice but to make a new one from one of the other panels. Trouble was I also had to make a new spare tire cover panel and there were no other way to accomplish this but to cut them from the large closet panel, which was not otherwise useful. This panel was precisely large enough but required I cut between the pieces using a mat knife and metal ruler. No room for error, a router or saw blade would have removed too much material. Seriously time consuming cutting. 
Panel cut, here's the jig we came up with to precisely align panels with cabinet parts. It's an adjustable three-sided box with clamps holding things as needed. Contact cement is completely unforgiving. You touch the parts together and they are stuck, so you must think it through beforehand. You don't "get it close" and then move it around. For this particular panel, we aligned to just the front edge (top of photo) and used the sides only as coarse guides to keep the panel centered. When an original OG pre-cut laminate panel was used, such as the fridge vent cover, the box would be closed in tight on all 3 sides and a clamp placed across the open end to hold it tight against the cabinet part.
The dowels are used to keep the glue-coated laminate and wood apart from each other. The laminate panel is placed into the "guide box" on top of the dowels where it can not move and so retains proper alignment as the laminate is pressed down and the dowels are removed one at a time.
Maybe this will make more sense with a laminate panel in the photo.
Both pieces coated with DAP contact cement, jig at the ready.
Final result, both panels. Ready for T-molding.
Heating T-molding in boiling water. Completely removes any bends, ripples by slightly stretching on removal. Hotplate makes this handy.
Laminate polished/waxed, bottom wood sanded re-varnished, T-molding cleaned with acetone, repainted vent cover, hinge installed. Vent cover top and bottom.
Same basic stuff plus mildew removal. Fridge box cover top, bottom.
Whew!
Finished refrigerator cabinet, exterior. Yes, there is a noticeable tone difference between the top panels. OG panels aren't all the same and there has been some sun-fading of the vent and face panels that couldn't be entirely removed. This is not as obvious as the photo makes it seem, but is the best than could be accomplished with extremely scarce resources.
Finished interior, fridge box. I added small felt pads to keep the wood and metal from wearing on each other.
Finished interior, storage/control area. New tie-down straps were cut from OG curtain straps. They are exactly the same, just longer.
Just missing one small part. Anyone have an extra cheesehead screw and nut?
Coming next ... headbanger cabinet overhaul. |
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