In article ,
nucleus wrote:

On May 14, 10:59*am, (Mark Zenier) wrote:
In article ,
If this unit is old enough to have a separate bi-metal thermal overload
switch and electromechanical start relay, check out the overload
switch as they can fail by self heating and that gives you some really
strange load sensitive operation. *Our 1980's Whirlpool had that
problem, where it would run OK until a defrost cycle and then would sit
there overload cycling (a second every minute or so, up to several hours)
and them, like magic, just go ahead and work fine until the next defrost.

The replacement was a combined overload/start relay that appears to work
like a TV set degauss (using posistors or something like that). *About $50.

did you read my original post?

Of course not, this is Usenet. ;-)

the problem has nothing to do with the
thermal overload protector (i only ran that test after Meat Plow's
suggestion to check for insufficient freon).

Well, so maybe it will help somebody else reading the archives.

Same brand. The basic symptoms were the same. A change in the sound
at startup, and not keeping temperature were features of my unit, too.
(The difference seems to be that my fridge would get cold SOME of the
time). And your unit did a series of overloads at the start of your test.

The point is that a weak overload switch will give you symptoms that
appear to have nothing to do with its normal function. (The damn
thing isn't supposed to turn itself off, or if it does, it should do
it consistently).

The intermittent nature of the fault, where it would sometimes run
fine and sometime it wouldn't, would make you think it was something
different, unless you were listening to it while it was going through
its short cycles, which it only did about 5-10% of the time.

Didn't show up worth **** on an ohmmeter, either.

If I'd managed to get a pro out to look at it, he probably would have
said junk it, or get a new compressor. The one guy I called wouldn't
even bother coming out. Probably figured, correctly, that it would be
an unprofitable waste of his time. So I fixed it myself.

(A side question. Is is really worth a couple of hundred bucks and
a bunch of your time to fix a 10-15 year old appliance?)

Mark Zenier
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)