Catalina 350 International Association

Hi all,

Last fall I had the Fridge (Alder Barbour) unit serviced by the local Marine refrigeration guy. It used to run all the time. He added some more Freon and said otherwise it was fine. As it was at the end of the season the unit was turned off for the winter. We turned it back on a few weeks back and have just noticed that the cold copper line to the fridge, starting downstream from a valve adjacent to the compressor, is frozen - it goes into a triple coil with the return copper line and then disappears under the bulkhead and the shelf floor in the starboard lazarette. The triple coil of the intermingled lines is about 8 inches in diameter and has about 1" of solid ice around it. The thermostats in the freezer and fridge and freezer are both set at 3.5 to 4 where they have always been. Both sides are working fine. We turned the unit off overnight and all the ice was gone by the morning but then on reactivating it, the lines promptly refroze in a few hours.

I am told by some other sailing buddies that the Freon is overfilled and the AB unit is very sensitive to this. They say it needs to be drained a bit to the correct level. Does any one have any experience with this? Could it be correct or is there something else? Should I leave it switched on? Is it doing any damage?

The service guy has gone with the local fishing boats up to Alaska until early August so I cant get him back at this time. There is no one else locally so it will be a hassle to get the boat to somewhere where a competent service guy operates. Should I not use the local guy again as he perhaps has caused the problem and is not as competent as he claims?

Thanks for any advice.

Geoff. C350 #392 Takeo 1V Semiahmoo Washington

Sounds like an over charge of R134A. You might try a 10 second bleed from the fill valve on the return (low pressure side, the same line that has the frost) under the Plastic cap It has a Shrader valve that you press in (like on a car )
My guess is the liquid has not fully changed to a gas inside the freezer and continues to change on the return trip to the compressor. Bleed for 5-10 seconds and wait 30 mins. to see if the ice melts. If ice does not completely disappear try another 5-10 seconds of bleed. Let us know how you make out.

Cheers

Leigh Weiss

Leigh has given you great advice. The only tweak I might suggest is to bleed the freon out in 1 second bursts. You can always let more out but you can't put it back once it's out

HI folks,

Further to my original post on this topic, I solved the problem. After the refill service, we continued to run the system as it was set before at 3 or 4 for both thermostats. We set it even colder as it did not seem to be cooling the fridge and was running all the time.

But we overlooked two things. One, the fridge was fully loaded whenever we had it turned on in anticipation of a long cruise. Two, with the refill, we did not need to set the thermos so high. We tried them at 2 and even a bit lower and voila, it did not freeze the line provided we only half loaded the fridge and thus allowed a lot of space for circulation. By fully loading the fridge and perhaps blocking the little fan at the bottom leading cold air from the freezer side to the fridge side, we caused the system to never get enough and run all the time.

At least it is running ok now and not freezing up the coils up close to the compressor unit.

Cheers, Geoff.

C350 #392, Taeko 1V, Semiahmoo WA

Just jumping in on this old post regarding icing of the low pressure side.

I recently had my unit serviced by a "certified" tech. Soon after he left the boat and after watching it for only a few minutes after he had added some R134a (it took 4 grams), the icing started and moved very quickly all the way back to the compressor. I shut it down. I called him and he admitted he may have over-charged it and gave a date in mid-May to come and adjust it.

As it is now I cannot use it at all, as it ices up quickly and must be turned off. So I am considering using the technique below to bleed off some refrigerant, in 1 sec intervals.

My question- since this posting in 2016, have others now had similar experience and have they used the bleeding procedure with success. I'll probably try it since the fridge is unusable now anyway.

By the way, the unit is newly installed 1 year ago and performed well last cruising season but started moderate icing when using it this spring ??? not sure why it did that but that's the reason I called the fridge tech in first place.

Any input is welcome.

PS, The technician is also certified by Dometic, the newish owners of Adler Barbour. He says he'll be checking with his support group at Dometic for input.