Community Forums

Upslady · 08-20-2012, 10:09 AM

Freezer works great and ice maker makes ice. Fridge on the other hand is not cooling! Fins are just barley cool to touch! I've had it on LP and switched to elec. and no change. I have it set on 9 cooling setting. I turned on yesterday morning to be ready to go later today. Fridge is reading 65. It has had the newest recall work done bout a month ago. Last time out it cooled, 38-40, not as well as I would like but at least it cooled. It's 64 outside so not the outdoor temps.
I did search forum but hoping someone might have advice on this.

2005 Itasca Horizon 40ad

**CLIFFTALL** · 08-20-2012, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Upslady

Freezer works great and ice maker makes ice. Fridge on the other hand is not cooling! Fins are just barley cool to touch! I've had it on LP and switched to elec. and no change. I have it set on 9 cooling setting. I turned on yesterday morning to be ready to go later today. Fridge is reading 65. It has had the newest recall work done bout a month ago. Last time out it cooled, 38-40, not as well as I would like but at least it cooled. It's 64 outside so not the outdoor temps.
I did search forum but hoping someone might have advice on this.

2005 Itasca Horizon 40ad

First and foremost a watched pot won't boil. If you are opening and closing the doors frequently ( to check the temp )it will take longer than the 24 hours it usually will take. When I had this same issue , it turned out to be the two fans attached to the rear of the unit were not working. My Norcold is in a slideout.

barbaram · 08-20-2012, 10:31 AM

We found also that when it is 113 outside - making it even hotter in the MH, the fridge was doing all it could to stay slightly cool. We went from Oklahoma to Colorado with a 40 degree temp drop and the fridge worked like a dream. Think we were just asking too much of it.

Upslady · 08-20-2012, 10:47 AM

Only opened the door this morning to check if cool.

Are there any pictures or videos showing placements of fans inside fridge and ones outside in vent areas?
Thanks

**CLIFFTALL** · 08-20-2012, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Upslady

Only opened the door this morning to check if cool.

Are there any pictures or videos showing placements of fans inside fridge and ones outside in vent areas?
Thanks

You can't see my fans because there is a piece of sheet metal ( to assist in diverting the air to the upper side vent ) covering them . You can frequently hear them especially outside. Is yours in a slideout?

Upslady · 08-20-2012, 12:18 PM

Yes ours is in slide out on passenger side.

**CLIFFTALL** · 08-20-2012, 12:20 PM

Do you hear the fans?

Upslady · 08-21-2012, 05:51 AM

Yes the fans are running. We are now at CG fridge is cold! Running on elec. and seems to working fine. Maybe just takes a little longer to cool down. This is only our 4th time out with this coach. It just seems like it takes longer to cool and doesn't cool very good when hotter outside.

Radarman · 08-21-2012, 02:49 PM

Glad your outside fans are cycling OK now. Here are a few other suggestions:
Get the small dual +12VDC Fan unit from Ebay for the INSIDE that clips to one of your frig. fins. This unit moves much more air than those battery fans and thereby helps the frig. compartment cool. Move frig door bins up or down so when doors are closed, the door bins don't go up against pull-out bins and block air flow. (Keep open air flow from top to bottom) Make sure your door seals are OK. Start Frig. up on Electricity at least 1 1/2 day before you leave. Don't put much food in it until the morning you leave. It should be at correct temp. by then. Have your frig. and freezer food already cold before putting in the Norcold as much as you can (Prevents swamping) Once swamped, the frig will take awhile to cool back down. Open doors as little as possible until cooled back down. Get a digital temp. panel with remote for the frig. so you don't have to open doors to see inside temp. Temp. setting should be good at 4 to 6. Above that doesn't do much to improve cooling. Should regulate around this range. If not, the thermistor mounted on fin may be bad (Ebay). Get a service manual (On-line) for the frig. Lots of good troubleshooting/front panel diagnostic readout info. Good luck.

Muddypaws · 08-21-2012, 03:31 PM

Before you invest a cubic yard of money into a new refer, an Amish coil or a residential refer try removing and cleaning the thermostat.

You'll find it cliped onto a fin in the refer. It might take a bit of 'persuasion' to get it off but once you do you'll probably find all sort of munge on the flat surface. Clean it off, clean the fin, put it back on.

This made a 50% improvement in my 1200LRIM. But I wasn't content with that, Oh no! I bought one of these (Dometic Thermistor Repair Kit) installed it in less than 5 minutes and you wouldn' believe it was the same refrigerator.

It's in the high 70's today, my refer is in a slide so it's challenged for air to begin with and that side of the RV is in full afternoon sun. It's currenty running on setting 3 and holding at 30F, and the freezer's -4. I've been turning the adjustable thermostat UP twice a day for 3 days and it's still TOO COLD! I didn't think it was possible to get the refer down to 20 but I did just that in the first 18 hours. Prior to this mod it would not even get down to 40 in 2 days running on setting 9!

Wouldn't it be a hoot if this was the total and complete fix for this common problem? No additional fans, no new coils, no Samsung 197 & banks of batteries to run it? I'm not saying it is, but so far it looks promising.

Yukon Jack · 08-21-2012, 08:02 PM

Muddypaws,
Great bit of information relative to your efforts to improve the cooling effectiveness of you Norcold 1200LRIM unit as I have one of those as well in my 2001 Dynasty.

If I understand your posting correctly, you installed a Dometic thermister that was included in the Dometic Thermister Repair Kit, in your Norcold 1200LRIM unit. I just wanted to make sure I interpreted your repairs correctly, and could be confident that the thermisters are universally interchangeable, and if so, i will be following your two valuable suggestion to help improve the efficiency of my refer unit.

Thanks for the excellent information and just another example as to why the IRV2 forum is so valuable to the RV'g community.

Happy RV'g

Jack

Muddypaws · 08-21-2012, 08:15 PM

I am in no way affiliated with 'snip-the-tip'.

in fact, the term 'snip-the-tip' makes me a little uneasy for some reason I don't fully understand.......

I hope it works well for you!

Upslady · 08-22-2012, 08:25 AM

Thanks for the great info! Fridge got down to 36-38 last couple days! Outside temps were 90. I'm going to get the fan and do the cleaning. Will check out the other tips. Thanks again,
Bren