On Friday, July 5, 2013 10:33:10 PM UTC-4, nestork wrote:
Frank:

I looked at those pictures.

Check the top of the copper tube that makes a loop in picture
2dmf2p5.

It looks kinda wet or oily at the top of that tube, but it might
just be brazing flux. Maybe clean that tube with some mineral
spirits to remove any residual flux, and see if it gets oily looking
again.

The lack of any serious accumulation of frost on that evaporator
suggests to me that the fridge finished a defrost cycle just a
little while before you took those pictures of the evaporator.
Maybe leave that replaceable cover off and take a look at the
evaporator whenever you open the freezer compartment. You SHOULD be
seeing a lot more frost on that evaporator than you see in the
pictures.


There's an awful lot of dust on the condensor coils and the
condenser fan blades. I'm wondering if what's causing you to cough
is that you may be allergic to some of the stuff in that dust. If I
were you, I would try cleaning the dust off the condenser coil and
the condenser fan blades. (Obviously unplug the fridge when you're
doing that work.) The worst that could happen is that your fridge
would run more efficiently without that dust.

Hi, nestork,

I didn't have much chance to follow up on all your advice, though I appreciate it all.

The evaporator fins might have looked clean because it took a while to figure out how to remove back wall, which was covering the evaporator. I ran it for a while after removing the back wall, but apparently not enough. Saturday (technically yesterday) I tried again but letting the frige run several hours before photographing the evaporator:

Evaporator front view:
http://i41.tinypic.com/dqk8jm.jpg

Evaporator leftward view from right side:
http://i42.tinypic.com/50p0si.jpg

Evaporator rightward view from left side:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2rfq3vk.jpg

Still quite clean, but no gross imbalances in frosting. I feel uncomfortable leaving the back wall off for an extended period because there is actually a fan attached to it. It runs whenever the fridge is making "working" sounds.

I also thoroughly prodded and "felt up" the top of the copper coil that loops. It looks wet and shiny, but there is no fluid or oil film. The fuzzy stuff at the top is the end of a 2-ply insulative sheath. The inner layer is porous yellow sponge while the outer layer is a film of plastic. It looks like someone applied heat to melt the filmy plastic, making the top of the copper tube looke wet:

Top of looping copper tube:
http://i42.tinypic.com/63rvux.jpg

While I did some superficial wiping of the dust on the coils and the compressor tubes, I admit that it could be more thorough. It's a bit tough to get around all the tubing an such, but I will give it a go tomorrow. The smell itself is an oily smell. I noticed it more earlier this week beause I had just returned from a visit to an abode in which such smells did not exist.